BiTi Monday - tall narrow steampunk-ish drawers

Hmmm .... so much for a week of Buy it - Try it .... just didn't happen last week!  A combination of real life and a new DVD, season 6 of The Mentalist :-)
I have at least finished the UFO mentioned in the last post - the 'new' part of it being the crackle glaze!  It's a narrow chest of drawers, made of wood and bought originally from the Craft Barn, I think, it was several years ago.

I had primed it a while ago and got DH to laser cut some cogs to go around the drawer knobs.  The main body was painted with a pale cream, the drawers and cogs were painted bronze.  I applied the crackle glaze to the drawers and when it was dry, applied some Paperartsy paint in Hyde Park over the top.  The bronze crackles come through like magic!  At that point, it became obvious that the cream was too light and bright against the drawers, so I re-painted the body with Paperartsy Irish Cream.

I then cut some Venetian paper for the top and sides - bought a few years ago on our first trip to Venice, I have been hoarding it!  But it's time to start using it as we are going back next week for our 30th wedding anniversary and DH will raise an eyebrow if I buy any more without using at least some :-)

Here are the side and top views, I did hesitate about putting an extra decoration on top, but I am happy with it as it is.  Another UFO conquered!

Valentine and anniversary - 52CC week 5

Three prompts from the prompt jar for week 5 of the 52 cards challenge :-)  These were: pale, glitter, love.

 

Now you know I don't do glitter.... LOL.  But I have used the 'pale' and 'love' and added a bit of pearly bling instead of glitter!  I have to say, wasn't really inspired to make a Christmas card from this prompt, so did two everyday ones instead - Valentine and wedding anniversary, since it's our 29th coming up next month.  Good job DH doesn't read my blog........

 

For the anniversary card, I robo-cut two postage stamp mats (cut file from the Silhouette site, big thank you to Trish for pointing the way!)  The plum paper is a freebie from work and the pale background papers came with a magazine, which may have been Simply Homemade.  I punched out the two hearts and attached them to the base using foam pads, so I could tuck the pearl swirls underneath.  Then I stamped the sentiment (Stamping all day), it's little bit wonky, but I'm sure he won't notice LOL.  Then the pearls in the corners.  But it was missing something.... so I tucked some laser-cut gears under the heart too, and added pearls to the sides of those, supposedly to be like lines indicating motion ...... but actually to cover a smudge of ink near one of the gears, so I had to do the same 'fix' on all three!  I like the way they look, so that's OK :-)

 

The Valentine card was much simpler.  A while ago I bought some double-fold card blanks in a linen finish, by mistake - I hadn't read the description properly and thought they were ordinary single fold.  However this has turned out to be a good thing, as I can cut off one of the thirds and then trim it down to a mat to fit on the now single fold blank.  The same freebie plum paper is matted underneath this to give a very narrow border and I used a south-western corner punch for a bit of detail. Then I punched the two hearts in plum and pale paper as I had done on the anniversary card, but this time added a punched heart in a pink magazine paper (Making Cards).  This was stuck with red tape just down the centre so it could be 2D and I added a line of pearls on each heart, plus one in each corner.  No space to put a sentiment, but if you get a card on Valentine's day with hearts on it, I'm sure it's pretty clear what it is LOL.

 

I really like these two, and I must work out a way to put a sentiment on the second design, as I'm sure I could use it for several occasions.

Butterfly ATC

This is an ATC I recently swapped, I can blog it safely as it has been received :-)

I had done the background quite a while ago and then got stuck on it, so it went in my "what shall I do with this" box. The butterfly is one of several which I had asked DH to laser cut from clear acrylic, I had planned to try colouring them with alcohol ink. The two ideas suddenly came together! I added the text - printed on safmat - and a bling trail for the butterfly.

This will be the last blog post for a couple of days, as I am off to the Cardinal Colours retreat this weekend - and I have sooooooooo much packing to do........ :-)

Gothic Arches

I should say first that I didn't make this :-) DH has a laser cutter, he found some plans on the net for some gothic arches and after much cursing and waiting for glue to dry, here is the result. They are made of clear acrylic (very difficult to photograph!) and I have put a Yankee candle next to them for scale.

The question is, what do I do with them now?? I have vague ideas of making them into a Christmas decoration, but if any of you have any other suggestions, I would love to hear them!