How great is this?! I was thumbing through a 2005 issue of Woman's Day and ran across this project. They used 16 gauge wire (dark annealed steel) for the body of the project and 22 gauge wire to attach the branches and curlicues. Then they used Aleene's 7800 adhesive just to "firm it all up" and give it stability.
I would also mix in some small letterpress tags and maybe a handmade ornament or two. Or a small watercolored tag. Or handmade tags. Or do a swap with online friends for things just the right size. (in my spare time, of course. *snort*) Or... or... or...
If you make one please be sure to send me a link! I'd love to see it!
One day I was goofing around and I used the corrugated cardboard inserts from something or other and built a house. Then I covered it with old dictionary pages.
At this point I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it. Then I remembered my mother-in-law was going in for knee surgery and I needed a "get well" present. She loves family photos although she never does anything with them. So I decided to make something 3-dimensional for her to display. Since she has 3 sons it works out perfectly. Each son and his wife gets a side of the house while the parents are on the front of the house. The two couples who have children get the sides of the houses with roof slopes so that the grandchildren's pictures can go on the roof.
the front of the house H is for Horton
the parents
Landon and Jill, the babies of the family
Mike and Jeanne-Mari with their daughter Melissa
Ken and me with our kids, Kaitlin and Cameron
the bottom of the house The entire family has ridden several organized bike rides together. Cycling is a big deal to us.
A couple weeks ago in the Journal Pages group one of the page prompts was about environment. This reminded me that I created sort of a candle for my muse. I thought I would give a quick and dirty tutorial for it.
You’ll need:
A blank altar candle from the international section of your supermarket
Rub-ons
Yep, that’s it. So here’s my supplies.
Now some might call my collection of rub-ons a mite overboard. But I don’t judge you for your collection of 40 bottle openers and that perfect one that you sometimes have to bid on at the.very.last.second. and wait weeks for it to arrive all the way from the UK. Oops. Got a little sidetracked there.
Clean your candle with window cleaner, being careful not to scratch it if it’s one of the colored ones. That color is just a very thin film on the outside of the glass.
Decide which rub-ons you want to use and where you want them to be placed. This is very important as many rub-ons (especially the Hambly ones!) cannot be moved once they touch the surface. Experiment layering them. My main design is a pink Hambly frame with a FancyPants tapestry flower on top of it.
Once you know where you want them it’s time to put them into position. Remove only the backing from the one you are applying. Don’t get ahead of yourself. Be careful not to touch the design (again, especially with the Hambly ones. They will stick to even your fingers!) Put into position. If it’s a large design or wraps around, a spot of transparent tape will hold it n place.
Use the fancy applicator that came with the rub-ons. It looks like that stick your kids are eating their summer popsicles off of. Rub the design firmly, being careful not to move the paper. You’ll see it start to change color underneath as it transfers. It becomes more transparent. Lift the edge JUST A LITTLE to check on it. Rub some more if you need to. After you have transferred your design rub it lightly with your finger to make sure it’s well and truly down.
If you'll notice, I changed my mind about the quote I was going to put on. It didn't show up well against the red glass. If you do goof up, and you’re working on a clear glass candle, you can use an x-acto to scrape it off. On the colored glass it will scrape off the color unfortunately.
I noticed that she used a stamp with lines in her text blocks. I often worry about my text being straight. (why? It's my journal. But let's not get into the artist insecurity issue. That's not just a whole 'nother post; that's a whole 'nother blog.)
Since I really like the look of handcarved stamps I thought it would be cool to make my own stamp for this. So I cut a 4" x 5" piece off my carving material, measured lines 3/8" apart, and then just cut a bit to each side of the line. I wasn't concerned with perfect lines just as I wasn't too overly concerned with getting every tiny bit of material from between the lines. I want to be able to tell it's handcarved; otherwise, I'd just order a commercial stamp. I think any larger than this and it would have to be mounted on a wood or acrylic block.
Here it is stamped on blank watercolor paper. You can see that my watercolor paper is quite textured. :) The lines would be much more solid on a smoother paper.
click to see bigger
