How to make your own Bird's Nest

To create your own hand-made bird's nest, you need the following: a length of string approximately 1 metre, a hot glue gun, some dead bits of foliage from a plant and 3 beads.

Step 1.

Tie 3 knots at one end of a piece of twine.  Trim the excess off one end and leave the other end alone (it should now measure approximately 50cm).

Step 2.

Wrap your twine fairly tightly around the knot a few times to create the bottom of the nest. Add a dob of hot glue to hold the string in place. Continue this process 2 to 3 times more, depending on the width you are wanting for your nest.

Step 3.

Now start to wrap your twine around the TOP outside edge of your base section. Add dobs of glue in various places to 'fix' each layer of twine. Don't glue all of it, as some pieces need to be a little loose, so that it mimics a real 'messy' nest. Add some small bits of 'dead' foliage into the glue as you work each layer onto the base. You can do a little 'moulding' as you go to shape your nest - but wait until the glue has cooled down a little first.

Step 4.

Once you have your desired shape and size, cut the twine and glue the "end" to the side of your nest. Cover up the 'end' with a bit of foliage.

Step 5.

Randomly glue more foliage (or even some small twigs) on the inside of the nest and then finish it all off with 3 beads for your eggs.

So let's add a nest to a card!

 As my base I used the new Fab Scraps Industrial Chic Steel Pattern Papers, distressing the edges and inking black

 

add die cut foliage, 7mm black rose buds, blue pearl garland, bird on a branch charm and our bird on a swing charm, I coloured the bird with Royal Blue Liquid Pearls

I popped on Royal Blue Liquid Pearls to our new Bronze Stemmed Flower Flower Filigrees.

  

For the eggs in my nest, I used our Brown and Blue Crackled Glass Beads

and ta da one card finished!

 

Shabby Pink Rose Pins

Just a quick little tut on the pins I am making at the moment for a girls mini album.

I have used our 7cm silver pins, pink crackled glass bead, transparent hearts beads and of course one of  pink roses.  

Add a tiny piece of muslin and pink tulle and you have a dainty shabby pink pin to put on your projects

DIY Angel Key Embellishment

DIY Embellishment

Here is another quick, easy and oh so pretty DIY Charm Embellishment!

Cut approximately 10cm x 8cm of cream tulle, and put aside for a second.

Take one of our Angel Wings and Clock Keys and line the BACK of the key with red tape (Don't worry about it being able to see it and going over the key, 
we will fix it further along
)

Peel off backing of tape and twist 23cm of our Antique Bronze chain around the key as shown

 

then scrunch up and shape previously cut tulle while adhering to back of key (this is when you will cover up the "exposed" tape from the first step) and seal it again with more red tape (as tulle is "holey" it needs extra tape to secure).  You could use your hot glue gun, but even I am not gained to do that with all the holes!  Trim tulle to shape if necessary.  

  

Now with your favourite adhesive, in my case I did use my hot glue gun, and adhere 3 cream roses to your key

add a 7mm bronze jump ring to the bottom of your chain (see yesterdays post for attaching jump rings) with a bronze heart locket and key charm.

Now you have a shabby key embellishment to add to your creation.

How easy was that for such a pretty embellishment!

Hurry you only have 2 days left to get 20% all charms in store!

XOX Embellishment

With 20% off charms until 20th June, here is a great way to use our charms as an unique embellishment.

Take one of our large silver key charms and silver xox typewriter charms.  

   

Hang the x,o,x off your key using 7mm silver jumprings

To do this, you either use 2 pairs of pliers, or be like me and use your left hand and one pair of pliers to gently open jump ring, place in typewriter key with the loop at the top. 

 While jump ring is still open, slip onto key and gently close the jump ring with pliers.

Adhere one of our red scroll felt hearts to the back of your key charm (our new red tape is extra strong and will hold the felt brilliantly)

  

Don't want red?  We also have the felt hearts in white, black and cream

You will get 4 in a packet (approximately 3cm in size) for only $1.00, available here in the felt section

   

add a black 1cm rose

and here you have one inexpensive but very attractive embellishment to pop on to your creation.

or with our black hearts and red rose

Now you will have left overs 
as the felt hearts come in a packet of 4 and the roses in bunches of 5,

 so .... 

get yourself a packet of silver arrow charms as well.  You will always use the remainder for the boys pages, pointing to the photo or title/date (probably best you get yourself a couple of packets, once you realise how versatile these are!)

 


pop a rose on your felt heart and tuck a silver arrow underneath for a quick embellishment

See how easy it is to add charms to your creations?

Don't forget you have until 20th June to get yourself 20% off all our charms, what better time to stock up on charms! 

Charms add just what their name says - charm and character to your creations.

A bit of this and a bit of that

We have a mixture of Yellow and Gold today ...

Colouring Charms

Using our Silver Evening Dress Charms as an example (after all, what woman doesn't want a variety of looks for her eveningwear?), we have coloured our charms with the following products:

Sunflower Yellow Stazon 

Yellow Stickles.

Mustard Seed Distress Paint

Inka Gold

Stampendous Aged Gold Embossing Enamel

They are also in order of how well they coloured, with Stazon being the best, but this does only apply to these smaller charms.  I have used the following products on larger charms and the Stampedous came out on top of some of the tests.  I think it is a personal choice and can often be up to what affect you want to create. You can also combine mediums - how cool would the Stazon and Stickles look together?? Experimentation is the key and playing with the various mediums is half the fun.

 Let's get started on play time ...

Embellishing a Filigree Flower Border

First, paint the Filigree Border Flourish Flower with Mustard Seed Distress Paint and when dry, add Yellow Stickles. 

Cut up a small 23cm yellow mulberry flower into individual petals and place behind the main flower for a layered look.  The flower had to be cut up, as it was too small to be placed behind in one piece, and the other mulberry flowers in stock were too large.

Finish with a dark brown pearl in the centre of the filigree flower

A quick easy way to jazz up our Butterfly Filigrees is to add a small yellow rose in the centre and trim half of the stem off.  Attach other piece of the stem to behind the butterfly and fold both stems to create the antennas.

 

For those of you who subscribed to my "A Year in the Life" subscription kit back in 2011, you may remember the Christmas Tree we made from a circle .... well this dress works on the same principle!

Grab a chipboard mannequin and cover (using your finger) with inka gold.

Take a 11cm doily and fold like so:

 

then turn with the point upright.

 

 

Paint the layers with Mustard Seed Distress Paint and spritz with water.  Adhere as a skirt to your mannequin. 

Cut a piece from another 11cm doily (see below) and again paint with Mustard Seed Distress Paint. Again, attach to the mannequin.

Cut and attach a small piece of Gold Fibre Ribbon and Gold Cup Chain for the belt.

 

Lift up the layers of the skirt and add some cream tulle underneath and then trim to shape.

As a final touch and to add some sparkle, wipe some Yellow Stickles over the doily dress.

 

 Now for one more mannequin ...

 Add a thick layer of Stampendous Aged Gold Embossing Enamel and heat from underneath.  

DON'T heat from above, or you will have a nice mess to clean up! 

Once it is melted (this will take about a minute because of the thick layer), you can then heat from above and press a Kaisercraft Script Stamp into your melted embossing powder as you do so.

 (Don't worry if you miss some bits, it does stay warm long enough for you to take the stamp off the stamping block and hand stamp the remaining areas.)

Had to show this photo that DD took, the wrinkle is the embossing powder moving - you probably had to be here, but embossing powders are cool to watch.

(I think I have said this recently - I need to get a life!)

Okay while the mannequin cools down,

cut up strips of cream tulle and black tulle to make a dress and centre it with a gold poinsettia,

before attaching it to a card (that is still in progress as I am typing!).

So far I have lightly painted a Twiddlebitz Black C6 Card with Mustard Seed Distress Paint

and again heat embossed with the Kaisercraft Script Stamp

 and Stampendous Aged Gold Embossing Enamel.

 

Hope that has given you an idea or two for adding gold/yellow to your projects or

perhaps given you a new technique to add to your next creation.

Don't forget to pop over to the 20% off Yellow & Gold Section to grab a bargain, but only until Wednesday.