Laser cut: Engraved wooden tree decoration

Posted on 25th April 2019 by perfectly4med

I’ve had a bit of a creative funk recently – I had little direction to work in and consequently, things have been a little quiet in the Studio. That changed this week with my application for a large local Christmas Fayre being successful. I know, I know, it’s only April and I’ve started on Christmas prep – but that’s how competitive getting a table was since the invites came out in March.

So, the laser cutter has been blazing away with a couple of new designs. The first uses a disc designed to be a wooden earring. At 5cm diameter, it seems to be a little large for that, but I thought it would complement my other wooden tree decorations. A quick bit of design and hanging an amethyst coloured heart bead created this:

The trickiest part is hanging the heart. This was originally planned to be a star, but I didn’t have any suitable beads to hand – I think the heart works just as well.

Altered Art: Signs & woodblocks

Posted on 31st October 2018 by perfectly4med

I’ve been in full production mode getting stock ready for a Christmas Fayre at the end of November. All being well, there will be good footfall and matching sales. If not, anticipate a lot of listings in my Facebook and Etsy stores!

This week I’ve been concentrating on signs. The wood plaques were bought in, and then undercoated with gesso and a cream chalky finish acrylic paint. I designed all the typography in Adobe Illustrator and then etched the outlines on to the signs using my brand spanking new replacement laser cutter. After that, it was a matter of using Posca pens to fill in the gaps before doing a dirty wash with diluted acrylic paint to age them. Some had crackle medium added to the corners, but it doesn’t show up overly well. Each sign is approx. 30cm x 10cm, £5 each.

I’ve also been playing with some 10x10cm paulownia wood blocks, etching into them using the laser cutter. The laser has burnt away the soft wood more easily than the grain leaving a beautiful texture in the background. A set of four is available for £6.

Used in these projects:

Signs and wood blocks: Creativ Company
Laser cutter: Glowforge
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[amazon_textlink asin=’B00HO038BM’ text=’DecoArt Americana Chalky Finish: Lace’ template=’ProductLink’ store=’themanicstamp-21′ marketplace=’UK’ link_id=’26127792-dd40-11e8-a16a-8f3936c4d211′]

Quilt No. 23: Christmas Swirl

Posted on 25th October 2018 by perfectly4med

I’m on a roll… or should that be a bolt (of fabric)? This table runner was surprisingly quick to make and quilt. I took a couple of gratuitous shortcuts, such as daring not to baste the quilt sandwich together and merely relying on a firm press with a hot iron to keep everything together. I got away with it.

The quilt itself is made up of numerous 60° triangles with intervening diamonds, all cut from strips of stripes. The finished runner is quite long at 84″ and is 13″ wide. It traverses the length of our dining table with a small overhang at each end. Quilting was quick and simple stitch-in-the-ditch along the diagonals emphasising the diamond shapes.

The fabric is by Northcott and was obtained in Canmore, Canda whilst we were on hols. The pattern was called Triangle Frenzy Swirl and purchased on our previous USA trip two years ago.

Christmas 2018: Tree decorations

Posted on 14th August 2018 by perfectly4med

I know, I know, it’s still August. But in a crafter/maker’s world, Christmas has to start early to get stock together. I’m hoping to book a table at a local Christmas Fayre in November at the same time as the town Christmas Lights are turned on. Hopefully, that will mean a good footfall. But it also means I’ve started making tree decorations and spent the last three days doing not much else!

For those that wish to buy some before the fayre, they are £1,50 each – just drop me a line. P&P will be £1 for those that can’t collect.

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That’s Crafty! Show Samples: Christmas

Posted on 22nd August 2017 by perfectly4med

Following on from yesterday’s post, here are the Christmas demo samples I made for the live Hochanda shows. Unfortunately, we seemed to enter a time warp for the final hour, and there was not much time to go through all the demos I had lined up.

Merry Christmas Wreath

That’s Crafty! Surfaces MDF Wreaths and Baubles Set
That’s Crafty! Surfaces Bits & Pieces Greyboard: Christmas Sentiments 2
That’s Crafty! Surfaces Bits & Pieces Greyboard: Holly & Mistletoe
That’s Crafty! Surfaces Bits & Pieces Greyboard: Christmas Florals 2
That’s Crafty! Multi Surface Paint: Christmas Red / Green / Purple / White
That’s Crafty! Multi Surface Paint: Antique Gold / Gold / Silver
That’s Crafty! Multi Purpose Craft Adhesive Pen

Try mixing different colours to make shades of green – red for a warm brown, purple for a rich evergreen. Use Craft Adhesive for a doming glaze over the berries, and a glaze for the leaves.

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Altered Art: Decorated Tree Decoration

Posted on 3rd December 2016 by perfectly4med

This is another of my specially designed tree decorations for today’s workshop in The Studio (candy cane one here if you missed it). The workshop has just finished, so you’ve missed out! Cut out from card and pushed onto a split-pin clothes peg, I’ve decorated with DecoArt Media fluid acrylics, Ranger Stickles and Liquid Pearls.

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New Year’s Day Project: Card Collage

Posted on 1st January 2016 by perfectly4med

It’s the annual Christmas Party for my studio regulars tomorrow, and traditionally we do a project that upcycles the now defunct Christmas cards and wrapping paper. This time I thought we’d do a little home decor piece ready to pack away with the decorations to bring out again next Christmas. Here’s my example, created in a Tando Creative Mini Printer Tray (laser cut greybeard).

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Mass Production Line: The Burley Christmas Cards

Posted on 14th November 2015 by perfectly4med

It’s that time of year again. That time when you’ve designed this year’s Christmas card, and it’s time to make all 75 cards that are apparently required. So, a mass production line swings into action. Here are some tips:

When heat embossing large numbers of images, consider getting a teppanyaki hot plate (top right). Cover with a heat resistant non-stick sheet, turn up to a temperature where the embossing powder just melts, and then as you stamp and add the powder to each piece, the previous piece is melting. Slide the piece off with the end of a paintbrush as the embossing powder finishes melting. Occasionally you may need to push the card to the hot surface (again with the end of a paintbrush) if it has curled up.
Liquid Pearl dots love to cling and merge to the next one if wet. In my mass production line, I dotted in the same place on each holly sprig before leaving the set to dry. After a minimum of an hour, I did the next dot on each sprig, and left them again. Finally the third dot was added in the same fashion.
TOP TIP:
If your Liquid Pearls is misbehaving, warm it up on a radiator or in your pocket. It become less viscous, flowing better and forming nice domes.
Assemble in batches – and take a break between batches to stretch, change your attention, and generally improve productivity. And prevent boredom!

As to the finished result – you’ll have to wait and see. Especially if you’re one of the lucky 75 that receives the real thing 😉

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Perfect Packaging IV: it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Posted on 6th November 2015 by perfectly4med

So I’ve spent the last two days making more snowmen, with another trip to Aldi and/or Asda to get more socks and lots more rice! It was a bit of a struggle to work out how to package them in their foursomes. Whatever it was needed to keep them clean and dry. It also needed to give them their space and not get crushed. I considered getting bottle crates – the cardboard ones you find at supermarkets, but was concerned at a) buying that many bottles, and b) the ickle snowmen getting lost in the box and bouncing around too much. As I looked round the studio for inspiration, I saw some paper cups I got to mix polyurethane in – and they were the perfect size for the smaller snowmen. Then I spied a large cardboard tube left over from carpet underlay I think – sawn with a bread knife and finished off with a scalpel, the 2 inch rings cup the larger snowmen well. With some cardboard bracing and taping them together, a perfect package was born. Wrapped in a plastic bag (with suitable warning label attached), a quick curling ribbon bow and dangles, 40 snowmen are ready for their forever homes.

Now all I need is a forklift to move the total of 15kg of rice up to the house, and then to the church Christmas Fayre 😉

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Crafted from Caravans: The Christmas Collection

Posted on 1st October 2015 by perfectly4med

The floor, tables and just about every other surface in the studio is currently covered with a fine layer of shredded wool polishing wheels and jeweller’s rouge… I’m also going to have to do a thorough wipe down of all the aluminium filings that didn’t hit the bin beneath…

I’ve been working in a production line over the last two days, making these hanging tree decorations. You may remember my ‘sit and be wind chime’ was made from the sidings of my grandfather’s old caravan – these are too. All are hand cut from the sheet aluminium, cleaned up with wire brush and wet’n’dry sandpaper, hand drilled and hand sawn, hammered, punched, filed and polished. Ok, I did use a Dremel for the polishing.

If you’d like a set, let me know – I will make them to order for £10 each including p&p to UK addresses (international orders extra), so if you’d like them in time for Christmas please order by the end of October.

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