Recently went berserk shopping at Daiso (again), some of the items being these cute little sticky memo pads. I thought they would make easy decoupage cards and decided to make an additional set for my friend’s sons for them to try out this art form.
It’s easy to create your own (British) decoupage elements with sticky memo papers – just glue multiple copies on scrap card and fussy cut the pieces. The elements on top will get progressively smaller as you build up the layers for depth/dimension using foam pads.
Since I’m making the card set for an 8 year old and a 5 year old, I limited myself to only 2 & 3 layers of decoupage. I wrote the instructions in two simple sample cards, adding doodle borders and handwritten sentiments.
For the DIY card set, I included a set of pre-cut elements for the boys to assemble. Then I packaged some additional foam pads with sticky memos for the boys to cut their own decoupage elements.
My friend just called to say she’s now inspired to use waste cartoon food wrappers for her sons to continue creating. What a good idea for upcycling!!
Finished yet another WIP that I started a couple of years ago – this one a free kit that came with an issue of Cross Stitch Crazy magazine. I can’t remember which issue this was, but the packaging said 2018!!
Instead of creating a hanging felt banner as the kit was designed for, I decided to use the bright Emma Congdon design for a card instead.
To match the bright colours of the cross stitch piece, I chose to use a piece of 12×12 double-sided Vicki Boutin Mixed Media paper. One side of the paper is more colourful than the other and easily provided 2 different patterns to mat the cross stitch piece on.
I found a suitable 5″ square pre-scored card base from my stash to complete the colourful card, with additional embellishment using washi tape from the same Vicki Boutin collection. Cross stitch cards are generally flat and hence easy to post, hope my friend likes the positive vibes!!
Attended a sampler class at Papermarket’s new store in Great World City yesterday. This hour long Intro to Resin Art class was postponed from the original June date due to the Covid-19 situation. The new store is a tad tighter in space compared to the old one at Raffles City, can’t be helped I guess, considering Singapore’s high property prices.
But the people were the same friendly staff, and the class was an interesting one, like the other classes I attended in the past. The instructor prepared the resin for us – the food safe resin and resin hardener are to mixed in the proportion of 1:1 by volume, and several minutes of steady stirring thereafter till everything is well mixed with little bubbles.
Then we prepared the coloured resin in little paper cups by adding resin colouring, one in each cup. (Mica powders could also be used for shimmering effect) The blue was very dark – just 2 drops, but the turquoise turns out to be still translucent even after adding 5 drops in the same amount of resin. Then it’s a matter of pouring the coloured resin in the areas we want, mixing up the colours using toothpick or heat gun. I added glass bits with my plastic-glove clad fingers for the shiny strip in the centre. Gold foil, dried flowers etc can be used too.
We had to think of what colours and designs we wanted to create, based on the multiple pre-made coasters provided, before the resin preparation completed, as the resin will start to harden within 30 min, making it difficult to pour. However, it would take almost 2 hours for the surface to be slightly hardened sufficiently for us to bring the coaster home. The resin would still move very slightly if I hold it vertically. The resin only hardened fully overnight.
One participant from a previous session popped in during our class because she had touched the surface of her coaster and the resin surface formed a little peak when she removed her finger, so she came in to use the flame gun to melt the resin back down.
The resin shrunk quite a bit after hardening – originally I had placed the glass bits all the way to the edge of the wooded coaster, but after the resin dried, everything shrunk inwards. The colours are also a little bit different after the resin hardened.
Resin pour turns out to be quite a fun craft, albeit a not-so-exact kind of art. A bit difficult for someone like me to get used to, as I tend to want to be able to plan and execute everything down to the last mm where possible, whereas it’ll take a LOT of experience for the colour mixing and pattern creation to get things the way one imagines it to be. The resin hardening and shrinkage would also add a large dose of uncertainty to the final product. That’s the beauty of the art, I guess!!
I bought some 12×12 sheets of Summer and Autumn papers from Graphic 45 Seasons collection some time ago, intending to make use of the Collectives to make tag albums. But inspiration had been slow in coming, I completed half the tag albums and just couldn’t finish them. Then a few days ago I suddenly thought about making mini accordion books with the very same papers. When creative inspiration hits it’s SO easy to complete a project – just 2 days and I finished this little piece to my satisfaction!
To make the base, I cut two strips of 4″x12″ off the Summer paper, then scored at 3″, 6″ and 9″. Folded the papers and overlapped one section from each strip to join up the papers, leaving the top open to form a pocket. This forms a 4″x3″ double-sided accordion album.
With this colourful base, I decided to dampen down the colours using kraft paper and other ephemera of a similar vintage brown scheme. The Collectives papers have pretty cut aparts that made it easy to decorate the back of the book. All I had to do was add some corrugated card – the reverse of a Starbucks cup sleeve scrap. The lower half of the cut apart is kept on level with foam pads.
The Collectives papers also provided several positive and uplifting sentiments, which I could easily layer on to quickly make up the pages of this little encouragement book. At the same time, I left a couple of pages blank, so that I can add photos or some journaling in future, to make this little book more meaningful and personal.
I chose to replace the words Summer/Autumn with other sentiments from the papers, simple single words but will remind me to think positive. I found some forgotten vintage-feel stickers that I added to layer the cut aparts.
For the pocket, I punched a half-circle at the top to make it easier to remove the kraft card insert. This is done using the WRMK Pocket Maker punchboard, though this can be achieved using any circle punch too.
I decided to make use of the paper designs on a couple of the pages – sometimes a pretty picture is all that’s required to cheer oneself up, especially those of bright flowers & butterflies. I generally find nature-themed pictures calming and soothing, and the Graphic 45 designs are usually lovely enough on their own – the challenge is usually daring to cut into something one already like!!
Since the Summer paper is all cut up for the accordion book base, it’s simply a matter of selecting which picture panels to keep and how to further enhance the design. Fussy cut elements eg. stamps & butterflies raised on foam pads become easy additions.
For this panel, with the hummingbird motif, I added fussy cut feathers and a wax seal for more dimension. Without making changes to the main design, I fussy cut a smaller purple flower centre to add to the large motif, British decoupage style.
Here I only adhered the sentiment to one page, creating an additional interactive flip element. A video flip-through of the book can be seen on my Instagram.
Decorating the main cover has less restrictions as I can use all kinds of embellishments without fear of affecting the thickness of the book. I found some coordinating buttons and charms and fancy ribbon to hold the book closed.
However I made a few mistakes: – I did not raise the front panel on foam pads, and the fancy ribbon below affected the smoothness of the cut apart. – I had planned to use several strands of the thin ribbon together for the book enclosure, but did not tie up the strands beforehand not tape up the strands sufficiently. So the strands spread out when I was gluing the top panel on. – My original intention was to make a loop enclosure for the front and have the ribbons string through from the back, thus holding the book close. This is a BAD idea, as the ribbon is so thin, it is difficult to push 4 separate strands through the small loop. I tried to keep the strands together with metal clasps but the impact is minimal.
In future I’ll just stick to simple ribbon ties, or at least attempt the same loop enclosure with a single thick ribbon.
My niece’s birthday is around the corner and I decided to give her a Starbucks gift card. Again! Well, I’m not very original and this does allow me to continue to get all those cute shaped Starbucks cards whenever they get released!!! Even if I don’t get to collect them I do enjoy owning them for that ‘short’ while and crafting with them!!!
This watermelon shaped card was the summer version released last year. I punched a hole in the corner so that I can attach it to a keychain, and completed the dangle with multiple charms in my craft stash. The rose-coloured diamond is a paper clip which I thought would match the colour scheme well!!
Since I had my pliers and jump rings out, I thought I might as well work on the other shaped Starbucks card that I’m still stocking – this cup-shaped card from 2019!! I had bought a star/tassel bag charm from Typo during a sale last month (a real steal at $1), and I realised the two belonged to the same colour scheme, so with a couple more charms attached I’ve completed another keychain!
Now just have to think of an occasion to gift this one out!!
