Punny Valentine

I notice the US custom of giving Valentine tokens to all and sundry creeping in on this side of the Atlantic too.  The tradition of sending an anonymous card to someone you have amour for but are too shy to tell seems to be slipping away I feel. 

But we crafters never miss an opportunity to 'make' so I got out these quirky children's stamps I bought on a visit to France a while ago and paired them up with suitable sentiments I found in my stamp collection - My Punny Valentine and On the Farm both from Papertrey Ink.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. x

St Dwynwen's Day

Hope everyone is enjoying this sunny Sunday St Dwynwen's Day.  I had these wooden heart shapes left from my Christmas projects and chose some suitable stamps from my stash. The birds and pink heart are from Nordic Spring at Waltzingmouse Stamps and the sentiments in English from Seasons of Love also from Waltzingmouse.  Although the stamps are designed to look like knitted fabric I think they look like medieval tapestries too so are just right for Dwynwen who was a Welsh medieval princess.  The stylised roses are from Papertrey Ink's Rosie Posie set.  And the Welsh "cariad" I stamped with a small wooden alphabet set.  Although I have used a pyrography pen to burn the images on the wooden hearts you could just as easily stamp them in a dark brown ink or some other strong colour.  The pink heart is diecut cardstock - four layers gluesticked together makes a nice substantial hanging heart tag.

Au Naturele!

I ordered these simple plywood shapes with the intention of painting them but when they arrived found they were very pretty already.  They've been laser cut so the edges are burnt a lovely rustic brown and on one side the edges are slightly "distressed".  So I decided to keep them 'au naturale' and have decorated them using just my pyrography pen and a bit of red ink for the robin.  On the hearts I've stamped images in a light colour and then burned over them. 

You might remember I used the same technique last year on cut wooden slices.  I've bought some more this year to sell at my next craft fair on 6th!  Yikes - better get burning!

Rustic tree decorations

Many years ago - it feels like another life - I needed a second job to make ends meet.  I ended up working at home in the evenings for a local enterprise drawing pictures on small wooden items such as spoons, boxes, plaques, etc for the tourist trade.  Eventually the job ended and I was not sorry as though initially enjoyable, once you've sketched the same design on 250 wooden spoons the enjoyment palls! 

Anyway, I digress!  I saw The Sitting Tree's lovely decorations and thought I'd try the craft again.  I bought a new pyrography pen and some wood slices on ebay and these are the result.  I cheated rather as I selected some suitable small stamps, stamped on the slices with a pale kraft ink and sketched over the design. I might have a go at an original design next - though I won't be going into mass production any time soon!