As You Wish (Princess Bride Box)

NB: I apologise for the background in these photos. Possibly taking photographs of my finished project ON TOP OF MY GROTTY WASHING MACHINE was not the best idea. Wasn’t thinking about the final presentation I guess…. Anyway, please ignore said appliance and focus only on the box itself, ok?

Hello! I hope you are all well and coping with this crazy world we live in. Been a bit brutal lately. If anything can realistically be described as “a bit” brutal. So much going on and most of it not good. I try not to watch the news these days because it is distressing and depressing and keeps me awake. This means that I am quite ignorant about it what is going on much of the time, but I feel that is the only way I can keep my sanity (or what’s left of it anyway).

My cousin recently turned the big 5-0 and, to celebrate, I made her this tea box. We both LOVE The Princess Bride and so it inspired me to make something that was related to that. I didn’t have a lot of time so it needed to be something I could put together reasonably quickly, with as little room for error (and subsequent swearing) as possible.

So, using the gorgeous Iron Orchid Designs “Primitive” mould, I moulded air-dry clay and glued it on to an old wooden tea box I had purchased from an opshop. I love the hares and had been wanting to use them on something for a while. I added hearts and lots of florals. On the front I used IOD’s “Harper” mould to spell out “As You Wish”. These letters are very fiddly and probably the most difficult to mould and glue on, but I think it’s worth it. Before allowing to cure, I gave all the clay a very quick, light coat of paint (I just used acrylic white paint); if you’ve not tried this before, I recommend it – it really helps reduce any cracking of the clay as it’s drying.

The next day, when all was cured and ready to go, I did a couple of coats of pale beige house paint all over the moulds and box. When that was dry, I lightly sponged over the whole thing with a lighter shade of paint, to give a stone or limestone finish. A couple of finishing coats of matt varnish and I was done. It really was quite a quick project but I am pleased with the results. The box was filled with specialty teas and other treats.

What do you think? My cousin loved it and I’m glad I took the time to make her something special. Homemade gifts are always nicer, don’t you think? It may not have compared to the diamond necklace she got from her partner, but I hope she will treasure it just the same 🙂

I always enjoy making things for other people – it gives more meaning to what you are making and somehow encourages you to put in more effort and take care of the details.

Using clay moulds is a great way to transform an otherwise plain item and upcycle things that would most likely end up in landfill or in the back of someone’s cupboard, never to see the light of day. It’s an easy method that takes very little skill or expense and can produce lovely results.

That’s it for today – just a quickie post from this very slack blogger!

Take care – be kind to one another. The world needs all the kindness it can get right now.

x

Frame Game

Howdy. Welcome to another edition of “Who’s a Terrible Blogger? I am” where I apologise for not posting regularly and make promises about doing better in the future. It’s becoming a habit……(is it a habit after more than a decade, or has it just become my way of doing things and is unlikely to change? You decide!)

I’m pretty sure I said I would show these framed pictures before but then never got around to it so, um, here we go! These were created purely by accident when I was just mucking about one day with clay and moulds and small box canvases. Actually, I think what really happened was that I had probably painted something on the canvas and, disgusted by my lack of artistic talent, ripped the canvas off the frame. I then saw that underneath the crappy, cheap, canvas was an equally crappy, cheap frame. But, dear reader, I saw promise in that badly-constructed little frame made from the kind of wood that possibly doesn’t exist in nature or contains some sort of cancer-causing fibres and/or is harvested from rapidly diminishing rainforests. You know the kind I mean; we’re not talking QUALITY here. I am sorry I didn’t take photos of this stage….hopefully you understand what I am on about!

Anyway, the frames were kinda cute – solid and boxy and somehow vintage-looking. Or, at least, they would lend themselves to techniques that would make them become vintage-looking. Plus, they had the added bonus of basically being junk now, so if I botched them it didn’t really matter.

First of all, I wanted to make the wood (or whatever we are calling it!) look a little more hand-carved and beaten up. So, I basically took to them with a little craft knife and battered them a bit – taking a slice off here and there, chipping other sections and generally softening the edges, so they look hand-carved and less modern.

Then, with my trusty IOD moulds and air-dry clay, I made a few decorative pieces to add to the frame. Some, I gave corner moldings to, others had just a feature piece on the top or bottom. I trimmed any that didn’t quite fit the space, and added extra bits if I felt it needed it. These were glued on and left to set. After 24 hours, I painted the whole piece in a solid colour – usually something pale like cream or off-white, grey or a rustic blue. I sanded this back lightly, once dry and then applied a coating of antiquing wax, making sure to get in all the nooks and crannies, and removing any excess before leaving it to dry.

I had a look through my millions of art books that I keep for cutting up (I know – sacrilege!) and chose a few suitable images. The aperture of the frames are generally quite small and, depending on the thickness of the wood, quite dark so I chose images that were lighter in colour and would not disappear into the shadows. Portraits and landscapes work equally well, depending on their composition. I gave each image a couple of good coats of Mod-Podge to seal and protect and make the paper a bit firmer, as the frames obviously didn’t come with glass to protect the picture. The images were then glued in to the frames and a decorative piece of paper glued over the back, to neaten it up and seal everything in, before adding hanging hardware.

Et voila! So easy and, I think, so effective. I think they look like something you’d imagine seeing in an old pub or the cabin of a ship, where a lonely sea-going captain would gaze longingly at his betrothed or images of home. Or something like that.

It’s also a great way to use up damaged or ugly canvases. We’ve all been given one of those little “Live, Laugh, Love” wall-art canvases by well-meaning workmates or family members….repurpose them! Rip that canvas off and start upcycling the frame with images that suit your personal style and décor.

What do you think? I enjoyed making these and love how they turned out. It’s always good to repurpose items that would otherwise get binned or hidden in a cupboard somewhere. I am planning on making my own frames someday (seeing as how I bought a mitre saw 6 months ago with great plans for its use and have yet to even unpack it!) but, until then, I am pleased with these little ones.

Thank you for stopping in for yet another sporadic blog post 🙂

Book Bargain Bonanza

I had a day off this week.  A glorious, nothing-scheduled, I-can-do-what-I-want day off.  Work has been very stressful, I’ve been having lots of migraines, and life just seemed a bit craptastic in general.  I’m always exhausted and just needed a break.  So, a day off was necessary, for my mental health if nothing else.

I got up early (not too early – it was a day off, after all!) and hit the op-shops.  I wanted to visit some I hadn’t been to before, and expand my “territory”.  I didn’t have much luck in finding anything good to start with, but eventually I hit book heaven at one particular Salvos store.  Lordy, lordy, they had the BEST book selection, AND it was in alphabetical order so you could actually search properly in the section you were interested in.

I am always on the lookout for Alice Hoffman titles.  She’s one of my favourite authors, but I never buy books new (who can afford them???!) so I have to wait until I find them in second hand shops.  Normally, I don’t find any of her books or, just as annoying, only ones I have already read and have in my shelf at home.  But on this day, dear readers, I found FIVE!  Woo!  I’d already read a couple of them, but I did snap up two for myself – White Horses, and The Museum of Extraordinary Things.  So happy!  I’m cross at myself because I left another one behind – Blue Diary – because I thought I had it at home, but then found that I didn’t.  You know you have too many books when you can’t remember what you have!  Hopefully it will still be there if I visit the shop again…but I’m glad to have found these two anyway 🙂

Craft books are not always easy to come across in op-shops, and really nice ones are like hen’s teeth.  That’s why I was thrilled to find these two – French-Inspired Jewellery and The Adventurous Scrapbooker.  The latter has lots of off-the-page ideas for scrapbooks and similar projects.  I actually don’t like scrapbooking at all – I don’t do it and have never liked the concept of it – but there are always awesome ideas and techniques you can apply to other crafts.  So this book is great for that.  The jewellery book is gorgeous – not just for the pretty projects inside, but for the beautiful background layouts they have used for display.  Vintage papers and ephemera, ribbon and other embellishments make for beautiful pages, that are works of art in their own right.  So glad to have found this one!  Especially for the bargain price of $2.25!

I love dogs.  I had them all my life, right up until I was in my 30s.  But now, with full-time work and a little house of my own, on my own, a dog just isn’t practical.  Maybe one day…sigh…  In the meantime, there are books like Rachel Hale’s 101 Salvations to keep me happy.  Rachel Hale’s photography is always a delight, and this book of doggy pictures is gorgeous.  I want to start doing some proper drawing and thought I might start with some canine-inspired sketches (might as well begin with a subject I know and love!) so I am hoping to use the photos as guides.  In any case, it is a beautiful book in excellent condition and, again, at only $2.25 – I’m sure the original RRP would have been well over $35.00 – I got another bargain.

As I just mentioned, I am trying to improve my drawing skills (such as they are) and need all the help I can get.  So, with that in mind, I picked up this next book – You Can Draw in 30 Days. I’m not necessarily convinced I will only take 30 days, but hey, it’s a start.  I desperately want to be able to draw eyes so I am really hoping this book will help me.

I also picked up a couple of titles for my Mum, who is a  voracious reader and is always running out of her own books to read.  So, all in all, a very successful visit to this particular op-shop.  I didn’t have room in my basket for anything else, which is probably a good thing.  Didn’t stop me from going to a few more op-shops afterwards though! 🙂

Hope you are having a good day – thank you for dropping by x