The Crafter's Apprentice: boxes

Showing posts with label boxes. Show all posts

Saturday, 2 April 2016

Little soldered boxes

I had my first taste of mixed media at a workshop me and wonderful mum went to at Hope and Elvis. The workshop was led by Di Tinker Foster and we made little soldered boxes.

There were a selection of paper boxes to chose from and we selected one in each of three sizes - 1" square, 1.5" square and 3"x2". There were a whole host of "bits" to chose from too, and we'd brought along some things of our own.

There were loads of old postage stamps, and I managed to dig out some old Communist ones, including one from the USSR! I was thrilled with that as the Communist world is of endless fascination to me. I'd taken along some fabrics, and some charms, and available were glitters, the postage stamps, old dictionaries to cut up, sari silk, tons of beads and buttons, sewing thread, bits of lace and other trims, and broken jewellery.

On my tray above you can see my largest box at the back with the stamps in it, some charms, buttons, a pot of beads, a mirror tile, a bunny bead (it's actually hand made, not by me, and I've treasured it for a couple of years waiting for the perfect project), the 1" box and my glass lids. The glass lids are heavy bevelled glass.

This is my big box. I stuck down the stamps using foam pads on some to make them different heights. I picked out some large pearls and cut out words from the dictionary and glued them on. The words include communism, Poland, Yugoslavia, USSR, comitern and socialist. There is also a little bead with KGB on it - unfortunately it has wedged itself behind the USSR stamp which I think is hilarious - the KGB is behind the Iron Curtain!

I added a trim round the edge. The process was to solder the glass lid on using copper tape and solder. This is a technique I've done before when I've done copper foiling on glass projects so I was familiar with what we were doing. I cut the copper tape using deckle-edged scissors, then applied it to the box and lid. Solder is then used to cover the copper tape, holding everything securely in place. I added little handles with some wire.

The paper box was made from olde worlde map paper which is quite fitting!

This is my 1.5" square box. I gathered some sari silk and used it as a background. I then added some sequins and a button and three words. Love. Bunny. Rabbit. Appropriate for this beautiful bead, and for bunnies in general! The bead is from Tree Wings Studio on Etsy.
Her beads are amazing and there are a few more I'd like! This was pricy, but it was a present from the lovely Mr CA. Of course, being handcrafted, it is well worth the price, but it is a lot of money to pay for a bead.

The paper box was made from a dictionary page.

This was so hard to photograph! This is the tiny 1" square box. The paper box is a page from a French book. I put some pretty paper in the back (mum had brought some with her), then suspended a sewing machine charm from the top. I added some small purple iris beads which I left loose to rattle around.

We had an absolutely brilliant day, it was the day before mother's day so also took mum to the on-site cafe for lunch. Playing around with bits and bobs was so much fun. I'd love to do some more mixed media, but I want to take more classes first, I don't feel prepared to just run with it. Have any of you lovely readers tried mixed media?

Tuesday, 4 June 2013

Sewing-themed necklaces

Morning ladies. I hope you all had a good weekend? I had a lovely day on Saturday, we had a meet up of the EMMQG in a gorgeous little village in Derbyshire, home to Guild members Mandy and Lynne. Despite being bullied by Ange most of the day, it was so nice to be with other sewingy-type ladies who all accept me into the Guild despite the fact that I'm almost a quilt-virgin. I got to see some amazing quilts in person and eat some wonderful food. And cake. Chocolate cake. The only downside of the day was the horrible migraine that came on as I was driving home. I was in bed by 8pm on a Saturday night.

We have a little birthday-swap going and three ladies had had birthdays since I'd seen them, or had birthdays coming up, so a present was in order. But what to give extremely-talented quiltresses who would surely laugh at my wonky sewing? Handmade jewellery...

The cute little sewing-themed charms came from ebay and it took me ages to track down plenty of different ones! I decided to make each necklace the same-but-different. So we have a black version.

The round beads inside the silver donuts are glass millefiori, just beautiful.

Then we have a pink version. Those almost-round beads are made of paper. I didn't make them but making paper beads is on my list. No surprise there then, there's not much that's not on my list.

I used purple crystals with this one.

And finally a yellow and green version.

This one also has glass millefiori beads and some lampwork ones on the sides.

A necklace as a gift requires a gift box. I am rubbish at buying things like that so I decided to make them, how hard could it be?? I should have realised at that point! Some of the charms had come in a dinky little pizza box, so I opened it out to use as a template.

I used scrapbooking paper stuck to card for the first trial. I thought the card would give it rigidity. It didn't quite work. I think the problem was that the template is made from thick card and my card wasn't as thick. Version 2 was made from card alone, slightly thicker card. It still wan't great. It kind of worked, but I did have to tape it shut!

As this wasn't working, I decided to draft up a standard box with lid. I made the base. I made the lid a few millimetres smaller.

Except I didn't, the lid was the same size as the base! I finally gave in and measured the base before making a lid and had a workable box. Clearly I forgot to take a photo though! Ladies, I do hope you forgive me crappy boxes!

Friday, 14 September 2012

Zakka Style Week 24 - Nesting Boxes - post 2

This, ladies and gentlemen, is my last Zakka post. It's a pretty long one too, hope you don't get too bored... I've already written about my own version of the nesting boxes which are week 24's project, but I mentioned I'd also made a box the same as the instructions in the book, so I'm showing you that today. If you want to see the other boxes made for the sew along, the linky post is here, and this week's host can be found here.

Before I go further, I just wanted to say something about my last post. I think I was a bit vague with my comments on my photographs. What I was trying to say is that in general, my photos are a bit crap. I've mentioned a couple of times that I'm trying to improve them and what I was trying to say was that the photos in the last post were a big improvement, except the one of the materials which was appalling.

Here's a progress shot of my two pieces of patchwork, just to prove I really did make two boxes!

I struggled FMQing those flowers, mine are pretty rubbish. I also had no idea what to do with the ends. For my version it was easy, I tied them in pairs and the ends were hidden by the lining. For this version I had to sew each and every one in, and there were loads!

Here's a close up of my appliqué work. I like these leaves and the way they're constructed which makes them 3d.

The box above is my version with the far to big faux lining! Below is my box construction using the instructions in the book. Too much hand sewing for my liking!

Having said that, I much prefer the finish. Look how sturdy it looks... even without the quilted base.

I would have loved to have made a set of 3 nesting boxes as in the project, but I just didn't have time. The hand sewing alone took me two evenings (I don't slow THAT slowly, I just don't have very long evenings!). Thinking about it, I could have made my version smaller or bigger so I would have had a set of 2...

See the inner quilting?

And here they are side by side. Oh, I haven't mentioned the fabrics. I bought them from a little shop in Hay On Wye which we visited for our first wedding anniversary (and our honeymoon, thanks to that damn volcano!).

See how well they stack. Hmmm. And now for a little retrospective of the last 24 weeks. I joined in with 18 of the projects, of those only one was late, the elephant bookmarks. I don't think I've done bad, and I've certainly had my money's worth. Here's a little look back:

Week 1, the zig zag tote