Dreamees: A Bit of Bunting!

Good Morning!

Well, I shouldn't be at a computer right now since Dreamees should've been at the KC Stadium in Hull today. Unfortunately we had to cancel due to a mass amount of white stuff on the ground for the past week! We can't quite make it to the motorway to get to Hull so we've been forced to stay home and craft (which doesn't sound so bad when I say it like that...) We are really regretful that we couldn't make it and hope it's a great show for all that attend (stands and customers).

Right, now the difficult bit is out of the way... here's my project from last night (I'm pretty sure I finished it off between snippets of Celebrity Big Brother!).

This has been made with our pack of MDF Bunting - this contains 5 triangles of approx. 5mm thick MDF, pre-drilled for threading together!

Right, so first off, I covered each triangle in Pearlescent dark brown card.

**The best way we've found for base covering (and the easiest way to get slick edges) is to cover the MDF in PVA glue (just the normal kind, though quick drying craft glue does the same job) and spread this out with a plastic glue spreader, right to the edges. Lay the card/paper onto it and flatten all over, pushing out bubbles with your hands and ensuring its stuck in all the right places. Then, take a stanley knife/craft knife and cut around the MDF as if you would an apple pie (I know, that's a weird way to describe it but it's probably the best way I can!).

Place your hand under the MDF and run the knife along the edges, twisting it as need be.

Finally, take some sanding paper (or we sell foam pads within our starter set (which also has Bunting triangles)) and sand down the edges until they've been flattened so much that it looks like patterned MDF.**

I printed off 3 different Teal backing papers from our 'Pretty Pastels' CD Rom and drew around a triangle onto each paper, trimming it slightly short on the shortest edge to mean there's a larger gap when layering up.

Next, I grabbed a polka dot embossing folder and poked the triangles in at different angles & leaving some spaces, running approx. 2-3 through each time. This way, I got random raised dots and distress as I wanted. Here's a close up of the triangles which you may be able to see the raised dots:

To pick up the detail, I distressed the edges of the triangles and over the raised dots with 'Gathered Twigs' (my new favourite alternative to 'Walnut Stain') Distress Ink Pad.

I die-cut lots of Cogs on the Silhouette Cameo, the designs taken from our compatible CD 'Cuttables Vol. 2' - I then distressed them with 'Gathered Twigs' again and took the amazing 'Tarnished Brass' Distress

Stain (I just got into these since Christmas & I LOVE them!) and covered the cogs randomly, rubbing it in with my fingers.

I also took some Ranger 'Glossy Accents' and applied this to the cogs to give a raised and shiny effect.

Then, I recently spent hours playing with 'Diamond' Stickles and realised that my favourite way to use them is to squirt a blob in the middle of something and rub it it - this gives a glittery covering to almost any embellishment! So, I did that to a variety of my cogs and then attached them as and where I pleased.

I then trimmed the cogs around the edge of the triangles and attached them to the pieces of card-covered MDF.

I cut out lots of half-size Kraft ticket sentiments from 'Bloomin' Brights' - these were in Aqua, along with the full-size alphabet circles. The two colours, Aqua & Teal, are coordinatingly chosen whilst I was designing the products, along with the other varieties of colours available. I wanted to ensure that I could use both CDs together without hassle of colour matching!

I added the tickets to the pieces and cut up some gorgeous swirls too (these are an upcoming GSD die-cut file, available soon!) - these were stained with 'Tarnished Brass' again, and covered with 'Diamond' Stickles.

For the Crinkle ribbon bow, I cut a length of Tim's gorgeous ribbon and dabbed 'Broken China' Distress Stain onto it randomly. I then filled in with 'Tarnished Brass' Distress Stain and scrunched up to dry with the heat gun. I repeatedly added 'Tarnished Brass' to layer up - this was again scrunched up and heated to dry.

I then made the bow and attached a Tim Holtz Ideology Lightbulb!

AND, I rubbed some 'Diamond' Stickles over it to glitter (which looks gorgeous!)

I added lots of buttons, bakers twine & tickets to the triangles and finally punched out the letters with our 'Stampin' Up' 1 1/4" circle (these alphabet circles are also perfect for using with circular spellbinders dies!)

I distressed the edges of the letters with 'Gathered Twigs' Distress Ink Pad and dabbed 'Tarnished Brass' Distress Stain around too, rubbing slightly to blend.

I used 'Diamond' Stickles over some of the letters, carefully following the lines to glitter - I repeated this on other letters with 'Glossy Accents'/

And then I threaded some of the brown garden twine (the stuff that only comes out in Summer for tying up the stems of flowers/trees/etc!) all the way through, tying it before and after each MDF Bunting triangle to keep in place!

I really hope you like this project - it will hopefully be featured in an upcoming issue of Simply Homemade in the near future!

And speaking of that magazine - we're in the current issue! (Issue 26) We have a feature include the following projects: