Christmas Candle Holder

Yesterday I was preparing some items ready for the festive time ahead , I had this plain glass pot/bowl with a candle in that just kept staring at me and needed some attention .

Some time's it takes me ages to think of a design and make one but for some reason - instantly a image popped into my head and I just went with it before I over thought about it and changed my mind .

Sorry I didn't take any pictures along the way as I wasn't planning on writing about it , but after I had finished , I was so happy I just had to share .

I just love doing glass etching and normally just do small images .

If you want to try this yourself at home, you need some :

glass etching cream (I use a product called "Etchall" ) 

self adhesive stencil vinyl

Small Paint brush

I designed my image and cut it out on my stencil vinyl , taking away all the parts that I wanted to be etched . 

Apply the stencil down on the glass and make sure all edges are completely fixed otherwise the cream will seep under the stencil.

Apply the cream very thickly with a brush ( you take the cream off after and put back in the pot so not a lot is wasted ) . Be careful to not get any cream on any area of the glass that you don't want etched.

Once all areas are covered that you want etched , leave it to sit for about 10 mins.

After approx 10 mins , using your brush , remove the cream and scrape back into your etching cream pot.

Wash the glass under warm running water , I find warm water also helps taking the vinyl stencil off as it seems to harden once covered in the cream but the warm water softens it again.

Once all the cream and stencil is off and clean, wipe with a dry cloth and buff up your glass and hopefully you have a lovely etched image on your glass .

DIY Microwavable Heat Pads

After injuring myself at work and ending up with a week off to get myself fit again I needed something to save me from going mad from just sitting doing nothing and resting - I am not one for sitting around but the pain from pulling a muscle or trapping a nerve in my shoulder was to painful to do even the smallest of housework tasks. 

I have a stack of spare materials etc that I have been meaning to do something with , and after a hour or so sitting on the sofa , scouring Pinterest and getting cold , I decided to make my self something that could be put to use quite a lot over the next coming months 

A Heat wrap and hand warmers !  

I had searched several sites and couldn't believe how easy they were to make to be honest , not only that , some of the on-line stores sell these for ridiculous prices ! So I have saved a small fortune.

At the end of the day - all they are are a few pieces of material, with a mixture of household grains that you probably have in your cupboard .....

I was so excited , I made these in a bit of a hurry so don't zoom in too close on my sewing skills, I'm not selling them so it's only me that's going to see the sewing anyway ha ha .

Right to start with I had one of them neck support cushions you buy for travelling , so I traced around that for my pattern . On doubled up material you need to cut the pattern out so you end up with two pieces in the shape you want , 

Next - pin these materials together , leaving the end's open .

Then sew all the way around the outside and up around the centre part - again do not sew the ends. 

After sewing, turn the item inside out and press so all the seams are flat.

I then decided I would stitch a centre divide the whole way around too so it makes different sections but if your making one yourself you don't have to do that part .

You now need to sew shut one of your ends - so fold in your seam allowance , I used a straight stitch first and then went along again with a zig-zag stich just to double make sure that end was sealed closed for sure .

So now your ready for the filling with whatever you decide to fill it with , from what I've read you can use wheat, rice, barley, corn , flaxseed etc .

I used what I had in the cupboard , Rice , Linseed and some freshly picked dried lavender out of the garden . I mixed this all together in a jug - which Is easier to pour into the end of the wrap .

I only used a small amount of lavender as you don't want it too over powering .

Don't overfill the wrap ! You want a nice even layer in there and don't want it too bulky .

Once you have filled the wrap , you need to sew the other end part to seal it all in there completely .

And here is a picture with my neck wrap all filled and sealed.

The rice mixture can still move around in there so it not overfilled and compact and I suppose when it's all levelled out the wrap is about 1-2 cm high .

Sorry about the next two pictures but I thought I would show how it sits around the neck .

Now this can be put in the microwave to he heated . 

After reading quite a few sites regarding these heat pads , quite a lot of them mentioned heating them for a few min's  but also placing a cup of water in the microwave too. ( I am assuming this is to stop wheat etc drying out to much as then this could be a hazard ) , I haven't used wheat in mine but will place the cup of water in there too just to be safe.

This particular one I made took 1 min 45 seconds to get to temperature I wanted and which felt comfortable around my neck .  Do not overheat them . If you are making one - put it in the microwave at 30 second intervals until it has reached a nice temperature. .

I went on to make a cover for my heat pad so it was even more snugly using some fleece I had , the first one was a quickly made one which I wasn't overall happy about the colour of brown so I then decided I would use some lovely owl cotton material and another fleece material I had to make a different two tone one.

At least with making a cover - no one sees my quick, badly done stitching on the ends of the wrap and you can at least wash the cover .  I have seen some of these heat in the microwave pads made with fleece material but I personally don't think it is a good idea for that sort of material to be put in the microwave. 

Doesn't that look so much better then the brown one ?? 

So there you go , all done and my neck and top's of my shoulders are lovely and warm . Where I put lavender in as well, once it's heated you get a lovely aroma too rather then just a smell of hot rice lol. 

After that I went on to make some matching hand warmers too.

 

Door plaques

Hi,

One of today's projects were for orders I received . They wanted room/door plaques with a "superhero" theme  and the other for a princess .

After playing around with designs for quite a while I then searched for a few ideas. 

Again I found a cutting file on the "silhouette cameo creations" Facebook page for the perfect Spider-Man image and after adjusting a few cut settings for the plaque it was perfect .

The plaque was painted first (two coats) and then varnished (again two coats) to give it a glossy feel (which makes the vinyl stick much easier ) , and here is the finished product......

Products used 

Acrylic paint 

Wooden plaque

String 

Oracle 651 vinyl

Wood Varnish

Clear gloss acrylic spray varnish 

For the princess plaque I just painted it white and sprayed clear acrylic gloss on it as I find the varnish gives it a yellowing look , the crown design I had already in my designs 

The other projects today are for gifts , the mug is made again using oracle 651 ( I have said before that people say this vinyl is not dish washer proof - I allow my mugs to dry and cure for at least 3 days and so far my "for fox sake " mug and minion mug I made in a previous post has gone through the dish washer on numerous occasions and still looks as good as the first day I made it ) .

For the two burp cloths I used heat transfer vinyl .

Decorate your own cup/mugs

Hello there,

 

 Today's crafts were to make two gifts for family members .

 One of them loves "Minions" so I found the perfect cutting file in a group on Facebook called "Silhouette creations" , after downloading the file into my silhouette software and scaling to the size I wanted for the mug i then added some text and went about finding all the correct colours of vinyl that I had and needed to use . The vinyl I used for this was Oracle 651 .

I haven't done much layering before with vinyl so I'm glad this was only a small scale project as I found it quite tricky to match the pieces up before they stuck to each other .

Here is the finished product and I'm quite pleased with the result. 

The other mug I love and is quite amusing (depending on your sense of humor) , so I even made one of these for myself as It was one of them day's where everything goes wrong lol. 

The vinyl has adhered really well to the mugs , they were left for a couple of days before using but have been used daily since.  

I have been hand washing mine to be safe as i read that Oracle  651 can't be used in the dish washer but last night it was accidentally put through the dish washer on a hot wash  and luckily the vinyl hasn't been affected .

New baby boy card.

I haven't posted for a while but yesterday I made a card for a new baby in the family.

This is a great card to make .

You can design the card however you want for the front but the middle pop up part of the card can be purchased from the "silhouette store" if you own a silhouette cutting machine. 

This is for personal use only unless you purchase a commercial license to sell your cards . 

Here is the front of the card -- 

And here is the special pop up part in the middle , I also added a teddy on the shelf .