Friends are Precious

Thanks you for the lovely response to yesterdays post. I am so very fortunate to be surrounded by so much love and your comments really did brighten my day and as a result it was so productive and just felt good!

You all  bring me such joy! 

I am out and about today preparing for my friend's wedding on Saturday, I am so excited.

Hope you all have a lovely day!

xx

Before & After - Candle sticks

Last year Nick and I had a long weekend away in the Southern Highlands and happened to drive by some local markets. Being the dedicated bargain hunter that I am I braved the rain and the mud and hubby's displeasure at the thought of dirty shoes in the new Volvo (we had only just picked up the new car in Sydney the day before) in order to snag myself some treasure!

Thankfully it was all worth it  (even though I had to take my shoes off lol!) and I found these fabulous candle sticks. 

To be honest I can't even remember how much they were, I think maybe $6 each and they stand 45cm tall.

 

 

The before wasn't too bad but I wanted them to have a lighter finish to suit our house.

I started by giving the candle sticks a wipe over to make sure they were clean, I didn't bother sanding them.

I used some left over door and trim paint (the stuff we used to paint the doors and skirting boards in our house) and applied it to the candle sticks with a small paint brush.

In order to get an aged finish I took a slightly damp chux cloth and started wiping the paint off.

It is easy to wipe off too much paint if you're not careful, I just keep applying paint and wiping off until I get the finish I am happy with.

I love how the darker colours come through the white and create grey tones.

I

I used some twine to add some clay heart tags that I made and stamped, popped on some candles and voila, all done!

Which do you prefer before or after?

I think they would look quite good in a gloss black or gloss red finish too,

maybe for their next makeover......

xx

Hearts of Clay

Hello my friends, how was your weekend?

My weekend flew by just like my two weeks holidays flew by.

It is all over and today I was back at work and Nicholas was back at school.

I really enjoyed having some time at home, hanging out with my boys and getting creative.

I managed to get a few projects finished that I'll share with you over the next few posts. 

Do you remember when I made my clay tags here?

I had some left to play around with so I made this clay heart hanger.

I used some floral wire, satin ribbon and some pearls on wire that the florist ties around my flowers. 

I still have another one of these to make that says HOME, maybe I'll have it finished in another six months time or so!

I'm still loving my bag ; )

Have a great week my friends.

xx

Clay Tag Tutorial

Good morning all you wonderful people!

I received so many lovely comments and questions about my clay tags that I though I would share a quick "How To" on them

I used DAS air dry modelling clay,

I bought mine online.

The clay has a similar consistency to cookie dough and being air dry means that it is forgiving and easy to work with for an amateur like me



I used small amounts at a time and rolled it out just like cookie dough to the desired thickness



To cut out my shapes I used a few different things as I was trying to find the right size.

Cookie cutters worked well and I used those for the stars, small hearts and the circles in the end, but I did try using a glass and a knife to cut around the edge as well as a scrapbooking heart template with a knife for the larger hearts.

It is really quite easy to work with so it is your preference.

I just used a pen to make the holes, but a skewer would be easier.

Then let the clay shapes/tags dry at least 24 hours, depending on the weather.

You can see the clay drying so it is easy to tell when they're dry.

I tried a few different things when it came to the writing. I used a stamp with ink in the photo above.

For some I used a sharp implement (a screwdriver I think, whatever was to hand) and indented the clay.

You need to do this prior to letting the clay dry.

I experimented with different textures and rolled the clay over a table runner I had in the kitchen to see how that would look when it dried.

On these ones I used raised felt stick on lettering.

The letters have stayed on well and it doesn't look like they will come off in a hurry.

For the name tags I have written on the clay with a scrap booking marker.

This works ok, except the clay seems to ruin the marker quickly and I need to keep wiping the nib of the marker to keep it working.

I am trying to find a pen or marker that works better as I have a lot of these to finish.

For some I used rub-ons. I picked up a packet from the cheap shop for $2 and these turned out to be my favourites.

Probably because I have such terrible writing and they just look so neat and tidy.

There you have it, nice and easy. I used a 1kg packet of the clay and got quite a few tags made from it.

If you have any other questions just ask me and I will do my best to answer them for you.

Hope you are all having a great week.

xx

P.S We got the all clear from the doctor last week and I am officially healed! Thank you for all of your prayers and support over the last few months it has been really wonderful.

Clay Tags

I have always admired the gorgeous clay tags

that the lovely Ness from Marley & Lockyer makes

I finally got around to making some myself

 I worked on them a bit more last night and was so excited to share them that I used my phone to take some pics!

Excuse the quality of the photos, it was dark and I was tired.

   

Some are for me

Some are for gifts

I want to personalise these star ones to use as place tags for our Christmas lunches

That way everyone will know where to sit and they will have something special to take home and use on the tree next year!

What do you think?

Ness has no worries about me taking over her business

but I am happy with the way they turned out.

xx