Thursday 13 October 2011

Just Like Christmas Morning!

The Caked Crusader is not only an extremely talented baker and writer, she is also a very generous friend.  She mentioned a few weeks ago that she had dabbled in paper craftiness a couple of years ago but had decided it wasn't really for her and offered to let me have what I wanted from her crafty stash.  She sent me this photo and told me to select what I wanted.

It took a while to respond - I couldn't figure out how to say 'All of it!!!!' without sounding greedy.

We met for lunch yesterday and she arrived weighed down by a HUGE bag of the goodies and I've been oohing and aahing over it since. (The peacock stamp is beyond glorious.)

AMAZINGLY - none of it had been opened. This highlights a fundamental difference between the Caked Crusader and I. I open everything the minute it arrives and play with it as soon as humanly possible - she puts it away and it doesn't get unpacked until she needs it.  My head explodes if I think about that too much.


As a small thank you for her generosity I decided to make her a wall hanging - using lots of gold and glitter.

I started with my trusty Imagine, the Cricut Craft Room and a couple of cereal boxes.

I cut 'Caked Crusader' out of the cereal boxes six times, and layered them to get the right weight and thickness.  I painted the top layer with some gold mica watercolour paint, and then added 3 layers of Ultra Thick Embossing Powder mixed with gold glitter.

The frame was made from 4 layers of cardboard, glued together and then covered in paper mache.   I added splodges of paper mache on the final layer to give the polka dot effect.

Too impatient to wait for the frame to dry naturally (and I apologise to the planet for the flagrant misuse of energy) I sped the process up by alternating 30 minute periods in a low (100 deg C) oven and 20 minutes in front of a fan on full.

To make the most of my amateur paper mache skills I wanted to layer the colours on the frame to give some depth and provide a distressed look to the whole thing.  I started with a layer of deep blue, followed by black and then finished with some gold gilding cream.

I had a lot of fun playing around with the techniques in this project (particularly paper mache - I'd forgotten how much fun it is!) and I'm pretty happy with the final piece.

The Caked Crusader has reported it is now in her office and "is sparkling like mad - the glitter is practically radioactive.  Fab!"

5 comments:

  1. This is brilliant - I love the colours!! I'm with you on the patience front and waiting for things to dry!! Cxx

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  2. I have it at eye level next to my monitor and think I am staring at it as much as my screen - I love it.

    Hope you have many happy hours crafting from my donation!

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  3. This is stunning! I love that you used paper mache - I have fond memories of working with sticky paste as a child :) Thanks for sharing...

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  4. This is amazing!! I'm so jealous :)

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  5. What a fun and special gift to give to your uber generous friend! Sharing crafty things amongst friends is so much fun!!!

    Thanks so much for your sweet comment today on my blog! : )

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Thanks so much for dropping by!