60th Birthday Card

Hi there, tonight I've started to make a 'big' birthday card for a colleague at school. I have a bit of a reputation to keep up so they are expecting something spectacular! 

This was the card that made for another colleague to celebrate her 50th. I haven't got any really good pictures of it so excuse the messy craft table. I love these exploding boxes with a cake inside. I used my favourite Downton Dies from Crafter's Companion but everything else was made using my beloved silhouette cameo.

This was the fiftieth card I made for my big sister, a couple of years ago .... I might recreate it, but this time for 60 ... that's going to be a lot of candles I'm going to have to cut out!

 As you can see it was very long!


While I'm looking at these 'big' birthday card, I've just remembered my little sis's fortieth card I made last year. I made 40 candles glued onto disks. Silhouette to the rescue again! Sorry, the pictures are not very good - my old camera couldn't cope with my gloomy craft room.

Here is a 60th card that I made for my sister-in-law to give to a friend. He was into motobikes and wine ... hence the theme!

Well I've started on my latest one. This time using my brother Cut N Scan. I've drawn my candles in Corel draw and saved them as a SVG. Here's the first batch being cut out ... 11 minutes ... I love how the machine tells me how long it is going to take. 

Good grief, is that the time! Well that's all for now. I've got to go to bed ... lessons to teach tomorrow and all that.

Pammie xx

Christmas Box

Today I'm showing a box made for a Christmas present this year. It is made from 12mm MDF.  After spraying with a white primer, I finished it with a satin finish red spray paint. I did the design in Corel Draw and lasered it, setting it up so it just removed the paint layer revealing the wood beneath it.

I used a roll of Christmas paper to line the inside fixing it in using a permanent spray adhesive.

The lid was fixed on using brass butterfly hinges but because it was quite heavy, I attached some ribbon to stop the lid from toppling back and breaking the hinges.

Of course, I left everything to the last minute as usual and had a bit of a nightmare engraving on the design - the belt on the laser pinged off when it was three-quarter of a way through .... arrggh! Our lovely technician saved the day and after a bit of jiggery-pokery I managed to re-align the laser and complete the job. Yay! 

Anyway, the recipients were really chuffed with it which makes it all worth while.

Happy New Year!

Wire Jewellery Family Tree

Hello there,

It's been a long time since I posted a blog ... September last year! This new job as head of department is certainly been keeping me busy and on my toes. Anyway I decided a fresh start is needed and a bit of a revamp/re-branding was in order, hence the change of name from Girl Cave Craft to Ella's Attic ... yes still beavering away up here in my loft.

Since it's Mother's Day, I thought I would post some pictures of the gift I made my mum this year.  
We've made a couple of jewellery wire trees at our Craft Club in Evesham but this time I cut some small MDF hearts for everyone to hang on their trees to make them into family trees.

I painted the hearts in white gesso and then sponged round the edges with Tumbled Glass distress ink. I made some jump rings (they had to be quite large to fit through the heart).  I used a glass candle holder (from Tesco's) and glued the tree in place using copious amounts of contact adhesive such as Evo-stick (very smelly so do this in a well ventilated room) and pushed lots decorative sand into the glue while it was still wet.  When the glue had cured (I left it for 24 hours) I then attached the hearts. 

I managed to post it to Blackpool and it amazingly arrived in one piece and I am pleased to say that my Mum loved it. 

Crochet hearts next week. I haven't crocheted before so it will be interesting to gain a new skill.

Ela x