Sharpie versatility – customising inflatables

Posted on 18th August 2011 by perfectly4med

So, what do you do when all the rings and inflatable dolphins are the same at the poolside? You ask your artistic uncle to customise yours for you. And so it was I was thankful for taking my collection of Sharpies with me on holiday! I created a dragon for Josh and tattooed eyebrows for Dan’s dolphin. I’m pleased to say that both stood up pretty well in use, and the black Sharpie was far more resilient than the colours. It helped that the surface was grainy on the ring and on the white printed areas of the dolphin.

A little bit of history…

Posted on 17th August 2011 by perfectly4med

Whilst sorting out the dining room, I had to go under the floorboards and found sections of the Leicester Mail and a Daily Express from Wednesday, 5th May 1937. The country was gearing up for the coronation of King Edward VIII a week later, and it was the day before the Hindenburg disaster. Fascinating reading! And whilst changing the radiator, I scraped off several historical layers of wallpaper. I’ve incorporated both, and the new wallpaper, into three art pieces to adorn the newly painted walls:

Each canvas panel is 12×12 inches, with the centre area painted in the room colour (Dulux Barley White) and edged with quarter inch brass tape from Ranger. The ageing was done with brown Neocolor II wax soluble crayon. Each section of newspaper was scanned and stuck down with matte multi-medium. The same was done with the wallpaper samples. The flowers are cut from the new wallpaper, Sanderson’s ‘Sweet Bay’ (Pattern No. DPFWSW102).

Jumping Beans – tangle pattern

Posted on 1st August 2011 by perfectly4med

Well dear reader, welcome to another week of daily tangle goodness 🙂

This first pattern is direct from a childhood memory of a small ball bearing in a capsule simulating a Mexican jumping bean. Just one rule with this – make sure the ‘ball’ is consistently placed by gravity, only horizontal capsules can have the ball placed anywhere. Fill in the gaps with movement lines.

Tomorrow’s pattern: ‘Ovate’.

Gingham Tablecloth Card

Posted on 18th July 2011 by perfectly4med

This week’s theme at my favourite ProMarker challenge site, Passion for ProMarkers, is ‘gingham’ [Week 108]. I decided to make my own gingham paper, and it sort of developed from there. It was particularly timely to have available the free gift stamps from Quick Cards this month, the ‘Time for Tea’ stamp collection by Beth Gunnell. I replicated their colour scheme as my head’s a bit fuzzy at the moment, but the card design is all mine.

UPDATE: I was in the top five for the challenge 🙂

Continue reading →

A different take on jam labels?

Posted on 12th July 2011 by perfectly4med

I harvested my crop of blackcurrants yesterday evening and was pleased to have got around 900g from my one bush down at the allotment. A bit of boiling, sieving, sugaring and wrinkle-testing later and I had seven jars of blackcurrant jelly setting nicely. Full of my own creative juices this morning, I came up with a novel idea for the labels: I wanted to use the very blackcurrant colour of the jam to depict the fruit on the label. So I printed the text onto my labels (Avery L7160) and used the long-arm Cropodile to punch out three holes per label. A few green lines as stalks and a dab of white Signo pen and ’tis done. It’s a bit hard to see the colour in the photo (and indeed on the jar!) because the jelly is so dark, but the side on view shows the reflections in the glass to show the punch through more clearly. A quick idea to personalise your jam labels.

Tie A Yellow Ribbon

Posted on 12th July 2011 by perfectly4med

I’m cutting it fine with this week’s submission to Passion for Promarkers challenge [Week #107, ‘tie a yellow ribbon’]. From selecting colours, finding the cardstock, drawing the bow freehand, shading and blending to cutting out, mounting, photographing, uploading and blogging in less than 45 minutes. And all because I don’t have any yellow ribbon in my stash! Managed to submit it with two minutes to go… and I’m not a morning person either!

Continue reading →

Beaded Poppy

Posted on 11th July 2011 by perfectly4med

Following an enquiry from my sister, I tried making a beaded poppy. Still not sure exactly why she wants one, but I was sufficiently motivated to have a go.

I did this freestyle in brick stitch, making the first petal shape up as I went along. The other four were approximate matches to the first. The centre is meant to be a circular brick stitch, but didn’t quite work out that way, but does the job nicely. There’s something not quite right about it, and I suspect it’s the shape of the petals and the overall flower. A bit more work needed, but a good enough first go at brick stitch, and also a 3D beaded project. The whole thing is about 8cm diameter and each petal has a self-supporting gentle curve to it.

Unique Giveaway #1 – the prize draw results

Posted on 1st July 2011 by perfectly4med

Drum roll please… bit louder… and building to a cymbal crash…

And the winner is … … … being contacted by email today! If your icon looks like a brown rabbit, it’s you! More details will be published as well as the final pics of the finished book as soon as I have permission to share details 🙂

The winner did not claim the prize after 10 days waiting, so I have done the draw again today (11-Jul-11), with the winner this time appearing to be from the Netherlands! Congratulations, and check your email – it shouldn’t register as spam, but just in case check there as well! More details as they come.

Unique Giveaway #1 – the prize pics

Posted on 24th June 2011 by perfectly4med

Dear readers – as promised, here are teaser pics of my subscriber draw prize book in recognition of 10,000 views of my blog 🙂

The cover is hand-tangled with my own designs [it’s taken ages!] and will be personalised with the initial letter of the winner’s choosing before being sealed with a gloss varnish finish. It’s a hand-crafted book [which took ages too!], with hard cover and sewn and glued spine.

Inside are colour copies of all my tangle patterns from January to June 2011, and the eight tags will contain hand-drawn tangles, with tips on shading and may be even a unique and unpublished, exclusive tangle pattern.

Remember, to be entered in the draw, subscribe to my blog using the ‘Sign me up!’ button in the side bar on my blog home page by midnight on 30th June 2011. Subscribing to comments or any other page will not enter you into the draw. The winner will be drawn at random from my subscriber list and I’ll contact you by email if you are that lucky person. Good luck 🙂

Unique Giveaway #1

Posted on 20th June 2011 by perfectly4med

Dear readers – in anticipation of my 10,000th view of this ‘ere blog, I’m in the middle of constructing a one-of-a-kind handcrafted book of my tangle patterns, complete with hand drawn tangles and tips. Pictures to follow, but I wanted to give you all the heads-up. This will be given away to one of my blog subscribers, drawn at random from my subscribers list as it stands at midnight on 30th June. So keep an eye out for the prize pics, and if you haven’t become an email subscriber, then click the ‘sign me up’ button at the top of the right hand sidebar. Good luck!