Beano shoes!

I am a shoe fiend.  Always have been. I actually bought my wedding shoes before I got the dress! But it’s an expensive love, I like the quirky ranges which tend to start from £50.

In Primark yesterday I found a stupidly cheap pair of white stilettos. I don’t do white, and definitely don’t do plain white shoes, but I thought for the price of a cup of tea I can unleash my crafty side…

You need:
A comic – I bought a Beano. Roger the Dodger and Minnie the Minx are two of my favourite characters ever (I’m a red head, like my pigtails, wear a lot of red and black… Minnie is my idol)
A comfy pair of shoes
Mod Podge – I went for the green one, the outdoor variety as I know my shoes are likely to get wet
A paint brush
Scissors
Sandpaper

How to:
1) Cut pictures from your comic. I find it works best with a range of full square images and individually cut out characters and words.
2) Make sure your shoes are clean and dry. If they’re patent, sand them slightly to help the glue stick
3) Begin sticking pictures onto your shoe. It’s easier to do larger areas first, making sure you cover the top of the shoe and stick image onto inside of shoe.
4) When sticking, ensure you push all the edges of the paper down.

5) Keep going until you have covered the whole shoe.

6) Using the individually cut pictures and words, fill in gaps and add interest as your heart desires. I especially liked the pink ‘blam’ so wanted it somewhere obvious

7) Add a layer of Mod podge over the top of all the images, making sure and edges are sealed down  and allow to dry (4 hours or more. Be patient).
8) Gently sand the surface of both shoes. You’re aiming to smooth out any air bubbles or brush strokes.
9) Time to add another coat! Again, letting it dry fully.
10) A final coat and you’re ready to wow the world with your creation

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Wedding card journey

One of the carers at work is getting married. She and her fiancée are both female, they’re both mid-40s, and they aren’t fans of cutsey.

I wanted to make a card to celebrate their love; they’ve not had an easy journey to get where they are and I really wanted the card to show how chuffed I am for them.

Whilst I enjoy die cutting, I have been extremely disappointed by the lack of choice for wedding wishes for same sex couples. I found this love die from Sue Wilson designs and thought it would be perfect (and the thrifty crafter in me also likes how many other occasions I can use it for – engagement, anniversary, scrapbooking…).

The wedding colours are baby pink, grey and white, so that informed my choice of papers etc.

I used:
Hammered card in white
Pale pink mirri board
Grey pearlescent  card
White 6×6 card blank
Narrow pink ribbon (rescued from a new pair of pyjamas, those fiddly things which are meant to help hang them)
Narrow white ribbon (also repurposed from clothing)
Sue Wilson Love die
IO rolled flower dies
Ready made bows in white (I won these, nice to use them on a special project)
Liquid pearls

How to:
1) Die cut ‘love’ twice, once from pink card, once from grey. Stick the pink cut over the grey, misaligned by approximately 1mm to create a shadow effect.
2) Cut a 550×550 mm square from white card, 575×575 mm from pink and 600×600 mm from grey. Distress edges. Mat together (I find double sided tape is ineffective when I’ve distressed papers, tends to lift, I use Pritt Stick or wet glue). Roll bottom left corner up towards middle.
3) Attach die cut to white layer.
4)  Cut a 1450×1450 mm square from grey card and 1410×1410 mm square from white. Distress edges and attach white to grey.
5) Approximately 3000mm in from left edge of large squares, wrap 2 pieces of white ribbon with a piece of pink between.  Attach to reverse.
6) Fasten the square with die cut in centre of card.
7) Glue the large square to card front.
8) Die cut 7 grey flowers and 8 pink. Roll and glue in a cluster around bottom left of middle square. Make sure one or two flowers go under the rolled corner. Fill centre of each flower with liquid pearls.

9) Attach a bow to top left corner of centre square.
10) In top right corner, place three liquid pearls in a line going downward. In bottom right corner, place three liquid pearls in a horizontal line.

Birthday dresses

I needed a birthday card for a girlie girl. She’s turning 16. Although she still likes horses and cute animals, they feel a bit young, I wanted something funky but mature.

I restickied my Scan n Cut mat today, and decided to have a good look through the menus and see if inspiration hit.

My card blank is a 6×6 square. The pink card stock was part of my second most recent Create and Craft club members’ free gift ( Not one I’d have chosen, but I love it, so vibrant and cuts like a dream. The black card is from my stash, as is the white. The black and white baker’s twine is from the Gorjuss range, and the paper for the origami dress is Docrafts Back to Basics.

First I found the ‘Happy birthday’. You can choose your own font, own wording and meld them, but for a teenager this preset sentiment seemed to be a nice, modern one. I cut it from black card, setting the size to 72x53mm.

Next, I looked through the preset images. The dress jumped out as being simple but effective for a teen. I cut two, one from pink (33x52mm) and one from black (31x47mm).

I like even very simple cards to have a bit of dimension and texture, so I created an origami dress from a 80×80 mm piece of grey and black paper from the Docrafts Back to Basics monochrome collection.

I wanted to keep this card young, clean and fresh, and although it was hard to stop myself finding the perfect background paper, I simply layered a 140x140mm piece of white card onto a 143×143 mm pink piece. Then I wrapped a piece of baker’s twine about 250mm down to form a washing line, fastening it to back of pink layer for neatness.

Next, I stuck the origami dress in the middle of the washing line (I was going to add pegs, but it was too fussy for the design I was going for), and attached the pink and black dresses one either side. I fixed the sentiment in the middle of the gap at the bottom, letting the tail of the y overhang the matting and layering.

I then fastened the card front to the card blank, and finally added a matt silver sequin to the ‘I’ of birthday.