Encore - Lovers Love The Spring

Encore Posts

While I'm away, there are some scheduled posts with new creations coming your way, but I'm also taking the chance to do some catching up here at Words and Pictures.   Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook.  I'm calling them "Encore" posts and they're formatted differently (all the way down the centre), so you can spot them easily.

Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Hello everyone, catch up time here again at Words and Pictures, with a project which originally appeared over at Calico Crafts in their previous life.  These days they offer a fabulous range of Calico Craft Parts which are pure delight to create with, but I still remember with fondness the eclectic range of crafting goodies they used to supply.  Here's what I wrote back in February 2014.

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I'm delighted to share a little touch of Springtime and a little touch of Shakespeare with you. I was even lucky enough to catch 10 minutes of sunshine between torrential rain showers for some of the photos.

I'm always amazed by the difference in colours depending on whether it's in sunlight or in shade...

It's another hanging created on a side piece of the same chopped up book box as the last one... waste not, want not. (Calico don't stock the history books box set I'm afraid!)

I painted the thick cardboard with DecoArt White Wash acrylic paint and added a coat of One Step Crackle Medium (also DecoArt) around the edges.   Once it was dry and crackled, I rubbed Burnt Umber paint into it and wiped away the excess with a babywipe.

Then I began assembling my Spring collage pieces.   One of the joys for me at Calico Crafts is they have such lovely things that you really don't need to do very much to create something special!

The grapevine heart is 8.5cm across, and comes wrapped about in plain wire.

I have to admit that I unravelled that and re-ravelled it (yeah, I don't think it's a word either!) with rusty wire - a bit fiddly, as I had to re-ravel before fully unravelling so as not to have the whole thing disintegrate on me, but I think it was worth it... but then I'm a rusty wire junkie!

These adorable little speckled eggs - they've just had a whisper of gesso added, and then the white splatter at the end.

And the ruffle roses have had a couple of coats of gesso to rough them up a little and make them a touch paler.

The three driftwood planks absolutely delight me and, again, they've just had a rough coat of diluted White Wash paint for an even shabbier chic look.

Being a rusty wire junkie, I couldn't resist wrapping the planks up with a bit more of the stuff.

And the whole thing is layered over a piece of script paper torn from the Kaisercraft Timeless Classics 12x12 pad.  I inked the edges with Jumbo Java Versamagic Chalk Ink, which is a lovely rich colour, perfect to add definition to the paper behind the twigs of the heart.

The words - ah, the words - are from one of the songs in Shakespeare's As You Like It. The first verse is at the foot of the post... it's not necessarily his finest hour, but it's pretty!

They're stamped using the Artemio Typewriter Alphabet stamps onto lightly inked paper, and then edged with the Jumbo Java Chalk Ink again.

Some rusty wire through the eyelets at the top, some hot glue gun action, a little white paint splatter and we're done!

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I hope you like it, and I really, really hope that Spring will be here soon in reality.  According to the weather forecasts I've been looking at at the time of adding these top and bottom paragraphs, the weather in China is likely to be an improvement on what we've been having in the UK - so fingers crossed for all of us!  Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon.

It was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonny no,

That o’er the green corn-field did pass,

In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, Hey ding a ding, ding:

Sweet lovers love the spring.

Song from As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Springtime ATB

Hello all!  Thanks so much for dropping in today - it's lovely to have your company.


Despite squeezing in my Tim Tag and a bit of visiting, I'm still struggling with time, so it's another Calico Craft Parts creation today - one of my Calico Crafts DT makes which hasn't so far appeared here.


Given the happy reincarnation of the Calico Craft Parts, it seems a good time to get my virtual scrapbook of projects a little up to date by posting some of the projects using these wonderful laser-cut wood and MDF designs.

This springtime ATB was constructed out of beermats (or coasters if you prefer!), covered with a stone effect paper from the Kaisercraft BaseCoat Collection.






















I used stiff kraft card to join it all together and give it extra stability.













On each side I added a Calico Craft Parts flourish.













There are lots of flourish designs to choose from, including some fabulously intricate new ones which I'm looking forward to playing with.











I dabbed texture paste onto the flourishes, patting it with the palette knife to create extra texture, and painted it white once it was dry.












The delicious Artemio Summer Meadow stamps provide some of my favourite meadow grasses, stamped in Coffee Archival.












The words are stamped using the Artemio Typewriter Alphabet stamps.

And I positioned them at different heights so that as you rotate the ATB they progressively "grow" upwards.











These are individual letter stamps including multiples of each letter so that even if it's got, say, more than one e in it, you can put a whole word on the acrylic plate and stamp it all in one go, rather than stamping one letter at a time.







I quite like that you get the mysterious deep dark hole at each corner because of the rounded edges of the beer mats.  And of course I inked the edges of the covered coasters for a more distressed look, and to draw the eye inward.

On the top of the ATB is a little springtime bird's nest.















The upright supports are formed of some of the Corner Wood Shapes available (again lots of different designs to play with), glued in place.












There's a bit of Icelandic Moss to keep the eggs cosy, and the eggs themselves have had a soft wash of gesso to keep everything nice and pale and delicate.














The nest is protected with some whitewashed driftwood and decorated with some daisies.











And underneath, some whitewashed cotton reel spools give the whole ATB a little lift!

I hope you like it - remember if you saw it last time around, you really don't have to comment again.  But do hop over to Calico Craft Parts and take a look at the lovely goodies on offer!





By now, I should have been able to repay some visits around Craftyblogland - if I haven't got to you yet, I'm sorry... but I am on my way!!  Happy Crafting all.

There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest.  Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and their families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged.  But, alas, we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes.  Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter?
Henry David Thoreau

There's still time to join in my little GIVEAWAY - if you'd like me to put your name in the hat, just pop along and say so!

Book of the Flowers

Hello everyone.  If you haven't heard the wonderful news that Calico Craft Parts are back... well, where have you been?!  Although I'll always miss Calico Crafts as it was, I'm thrilled that the Craft Parts have arisen from the ashes to live again.  I've been celebrating the wonderful news by sharing some of my Calico Crafts Design Team pieces which used the Craft Parts.

If you're tempted to play with any of these great wood and MDF laser-cut designs, click on the links and you can head straight to the brand new website and start shopping!

I'm adding this altered book box to my crafty scrapbook here at Words and Pictures today but, as always, if you saw this post over at Calico Crafts the last time round, please don't feel you have to comment again.






So, on the outside of the chipboard book (the large one of the Chipboard Book Box Set  - so it's 22.5 x 18 x 6cm) I played with lots of layers of paint and texture.











I knew from the start that I wanted to use the large Wildflower Corner Flourish (knowing what's inside, I know it will complement what's there!).  It's already so beautiful that I did very little to alter it.

There are lots of different Corner Wood Shapes available, and they all come in various sizes, so there's bound to be something perfect for your project.










I just gave it a coat of the DecoArt One-Step Crackle, and once that had worked its magic, I inked it with dark brown ink to highlight those fabulous crackles.










I put some DecoArt Decorating Paste through a stencil from my stash which seemed to work well with the Wildflower Corner, and once that had set, I started adding my layers of paint.













I can't say for sure what colours are involved... I'm pretty sure Warm White, Driftwood, and Raw Umber were in the mix, built up in layers and washes, knocked back and dry-brushed until I was happy with the look.











I thought it would be nice to have a cobwebby look across the "ancient tome", so I pressed the Kaisercraft Crackle Texture stamp into action.












It's stamped in Coffee Archival and then clear-embossed so that there's a dewy shimmer as it catches the light.













I stamped "les fleurs" onto the smallest size of Plaque Shape 1, painted with more DecoArt Americana Acrylics, and I added some flourish stamping before giving that a coat of the One-Step Crackle too.

Again, there are many different Birch Plywood Plaques, all in lots of sizes.








On the spine I added a label using one of my favourite Tim Holtz sentiments: In dreams we catch glimpses of life larger than our own.














And around the edges, there's another Kaisercraft stamp on duty, this time the Woodgrain, which I thought made rather good "pages"!








So, we come to the inside, and some of my absolute favourites of the Calico Craft Parts lines... these gorgeous Wild Grass Shapes.

They've had the same treatment as the Wildflower corner on the cover, with crackle and stain.






I love that the gloss of the crackle intensifies the colour and darkened edges of the laser-cuts, as well as giving a gorgeous shimmer in the sunlight.












For the background I used a natural sponge to add another bunch of DecoArt Americana colours - Indian Turquoise, Spa Blue, Hauser Light Green and Citron Green - so that you travel up the page from grasses to sky.












For some extra detail, I stamped some lovely TH text in WhiteWash, and did some additional script stamping as well as some inking using toning inks through the Tando warped honeycomb mask.











Here you can see the stages of adding the crackle to the meadowgrasses, from left to right - the "raw" shape, easily beautiful enough to use as it is, then with a coat of One-Step Crackle, and finally with the inking to intensify the look of the crackles.











I've used several different grasses: Wild Grass Shape 3 gets its own spotlight inside the front cover...















... while Wild Grass Shape 2, Wild Grass Shape 4 and the Bulrush Grass Shape 8 are all inside the box.












To create the dimensional depth between the flowers I deployed a couple of those incredibly useful little sponges that come as part of the packaging when you buy TH embossing folders.









I cut them to the size I wanted, and gave them a coat of paint too, so that if you catch sight of them it won't look too out of place.  They gave me both the ability to create the dimension and some stability for gluing the stems in place.












Around the bottom I added some lovely Icelandic Moss, a mixture of light and dark green, I think.













The quote is by Ralph Waldo Emerson and bobbed up on a Google search.  It seemed to work well with my beloved meadow grasses: many eyes go through the meadow, but few see the flowers.











It's stamped according to my usual habit, in multiple ink colours, and inked to echo the sponged paint in the background from grass below to sky above.









So there you go.  As you'll have noticed, this wasn't the easiest thing to photograph, but I hope you get the idea.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  I hope you've been enjoying re-visiting some of these Calico Crafts projects this week (check out the Garden Tray and Woodcuts ATC if you missed them) but - as I've said - there's no need to re-comment too!

There are more to come over the next days and weeks, and I hope somewhere along the line you'll be tempted over to the new Calico Craft Parts website to see the delights awaiting you there.

Happy Crafting all!



The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
Henry Miller