Featured Guests | Catered Crop

Get well cards have become so humorous
that if you don't get sick you're missing half the fun.
~ Flip Wilson

We're shaking things up at Catered Crop. This month, our Follow the Recipe challenge is part of a month-long "year in review" with different themes each week! Last week I had a blast looking at all your favorite Thank You cards from 2011. I love that Tricia Traxler took the opportunity to use the Thank You theme to express our gratitude to our armed service men and women. Her card is stunning.

I know, we're breaking the rules. Most challenges ask you not to link back to previous projects. Well, forget those rules! Go back into your archives and pull out your favorites from 2011. This week our theme is Get Well cards. And, here are the favorite Get Well cards our Top Chef designers picked from their 2011 archives. Just click on the picture to go to their original blog post.

So . . . here are the rules for playing . . . there are very few rules.

Link up your favorite Get Well cards from 2011, including, if you prefer, any you make this week.
Keep the party going and fun by leaving a comment on the projects of the two people who posted in front of you.
This party ends at 8:00 PM on Saturday, December 10, and we'll start another one on Sunday, December 11 (so be thinking about your favorite Birthday card for next week).
Enter as often as you'd like.
Feel free to leave a comment about why this is your favorite 2011 Thank you card.

I can't wait to see your 2011 showcase!

December 4, 2011 | Filed Under: Dorcas Designs, Featured Guests, Follow the Recipe, Get Well, Peggy Marsh, Renee Van Stralen Tagged With: Dorcas Designs, Follow the Recipe, Peggy Marsh, Renee Van Stralen | 3 Comments

'Just living is not enough,' said the butterfly.
'One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.'
~ Hans Christian Andersen

As promised, here's part two of my conversation with Elaine, the genius behind Magic Boxes. I have to confess that sharing her with you is a little intimidating. I'm no journalist, and I sure want to do her and her amazing creations justice. So, please don't take my word for how magical her exploding paper boxes are. Go say Howdy, or maybe Cheerio, to her at her website, Magic Boxes Gallery, and her two crafting blogs, Magic Boxes and Crafticious.

Elaine's home is the beautiful London borough of Ealing; not London, TX, but London, UK. Looking inside her magic boxes is just like peaking inside a secret English garden. Though we just met this weekend, quicker than a hiccup Elaine agreed to give us a behind-the-scenes look at how she makes her boxes and, oh my, how one of her magic boxes became a fixture in the Queen's private apartments in Buckingham Palace. I had to know!

Catered Crop: Your boxes have amazing textures and colors. Since Catered Crop is all about "recipes," what are some of your favorite ingredients for making your boxes?

Elaine:

Texture: If I’m making a delicately coloured box such as ivory for a wedding, I use texture instead of colour. My favourite card for this type of box is Stardream or Pearl (double sided). Its reflective surface highlights the embossing much better than mat card. For an extra punch, I lightly brayer over the embossed surface with Rangers Acrylic Paint Dabber – Pearl. It has a fabulously lush sheen and really makes the embossing pop.

The boxes are small, 75mm (2.9“) High x 65mm (2.5“) Wide, opening to 210mm (8.3“) square – so small embossed patterns work best. My favourite embossing folders are; Craft Concepts 'Budding vine' and Cuttlebug ‘Birds and Swirls‘.

Colour: Once I start working with colour subtlety goes out the window – I like it punchy! I use water-based inks, VersaColour and Rangers Distress Inks; I find them much easier to blend.

Using a coloured card base makes the ink colours much more intense, I never work onto white. When I’m using leaf or fern stamps I start with lime green card as a base. VersaColour – lagoon blue, evergreen, fresh green, marigold and canary yellow work brilliantly on this colour card. I prefer mat cardstock – coated card tends to reduce colour strength.

I start by sponging two or three colours across the lime card. Something like canary yellow at the top, fresh green – centre and lagoon blue – bottom, overlapping the colours to merge them together. This makes a wonderful base to then stamp onto.

Equipment: I don’t use anything fancy, just a kitchen scouring sponge, chopped into small cubes, one cube for each colour and I work on a laminated A4 sheet of white card.

I dab the inkpad onto the laminated sheet, run the sponge through the ink and dab off any excess so it’s almost dry. I sponge across my card using light circular motions. The secret to an even, rich cover is to gradually build the colour depth by applying several light layers. Finally, I stamp onto this using darker ink – VersaColour ‘Evergreen’ is a favourite of mine.

Catered Crop: I noticed in your Butterfly Tutorial you mentioned you used a stamp you designed yourself. Can you tell us a little more about that? Are you stamps available to the public?

I design and make a lot of my own stamps. Most of my boxes are themed so I can design specifically for that, it also allows me to size the stamps so they fit the boxes perfectly. I have an Imagepac Daylight Stamp maker and I love it to bits! I had a web-shop, with my Mum, and we sold some of the stamps there. Unfortunately, as a result of the economic downturn, we made the decision to close the shop last year.

Catered Crop: And, finally, here are the questions I'm really dying to ask. I saw that you were commissioned to make a presentation box for HM Queen Elizabeth and HRH Prince Phillip's 60th Wedding Anniversary (A Royal Anniversary). Oh do tell us more about that. Have you met the Royal Family and do you have any plans for the upcoming Royal Wedding?

Elaine: I was a bag of nerves from start to finish with this box!

I have a close friend who works at Windsor Castle and he asked would I please make a box that would be presented to the Queen on her up coming Diamond Wedding Anniversary.

After seeing the news one evening I decided to base the box on details from Her Majesty’s wedding dress. The dress was on display in a special exhibition at Buckingham Palace. They showed a clip of the Queen walking round the exhibition and she stopped at the display case that held her dress. I was surprised and very moved to see how her eyes sparkled with delight as she pressed her face close to the glass for a closer look.

The box took three weeks to research, design and make. It was made from ivory pearl card; hand embossed and detailed using liquid pearls set with countless 2mm clear gemstones. My youngest son, who was primary school age at the time, gave me a stern telling off because he thought it was very wrong of me not to use real diamonds when it was for the Queen!

I designed several stamps based on embroidered elements from her dress and stamped them using VersaMark and pearl embossing powder.

The explosion was a bouquet of white orchids (her wedding flowers) made from white handmade silk paper. I hand painted the flower details and leaves using Twinkling H2Os lime, orange and yellow.

The relief of finally handing over the finished box is indescribable.

I have never met the Royal Family but my friend meets them regularly. I’m told that Her Majesty recognized her wedding dress instantly and was very happy with her box. It now lives in it’s own, specially made, glass case at Buckingham Palace. I hope she takes it out occasionally.

I have no plans for the Royal Wedding. It would be difficult to make a box without having some prior details of the dress and flowers and I don’t think I’d be privy to that kind of information. Who knows, maybe the first Anniversary!

Catered Crop: I love learning about how creative minds work and the tools, techniques, and especially stories behind the creations. This has been a huge, huge treat for me. Thank you, Elaine, for so generously sharing your creations and your crafting genius with us across the big pond!

March 25, 2011 | Filed Under: Featured Guests, New Featured Guests Tagged With: Magic Boxes | 1 Comment

It's so beautifully arranged on the plate — you know someone's fingers have been all over it.
~ Julia Child

I am so honored to introduce you to Elaine, who, for me, brings to paper crafts what Julia Child brought to cooking, rich gourmet goodness. This weekend I tripped onto Elaine's blog, Magic Boxes, and was immediately entranced. The magic she makes with her exploding boxes is just spellbinding.

When I was able to tear my eyes away from the seductive pictures of those boxes, I also saw her generous tips and tutorials. I had to know more about the genius behind these boxes. Since our Catered Crop party this week gives us a chance to make paper boxes, I asked Elaine if she would be our guest all the way from her London home. She agreed, and our Texas/London conversation began. Okay, you can eavesdrop if you insist.

Catered Crop: How did making boxes become a passion for you and what do you enjoy most about them?

Elaine: Packaging styles, boxes and the different ways they’re constructed have always fascinated me. I love working in three dimensions and graduated with an honours degree in furniture and product design so I’m constantly redesigning things in my head.

My magic boxes came about when I started playing with the traditional exploding box. It just wasn’t three dimensional enough for me. I wanted it to truly explode. I played with paper springs but wanted something less visible, something that made the butterflies really look like they were flying – that’s when I came up with the idea of using acetate strips.

I love making my ‘magic boxes’, I slip into a little fantasy world all of my own. I’m totally engrossed when I’m making one and when it’s finished there’s nothing better than to see the joyfull surprise on someone’s face as they lift the lid and my little world pops out at them.

Catered Crop: Your boxes seem to travel the globe: India, the Orients, Scotland, and one my my favorites, the Tropics. Where do you get your inspiration?

Elaine: I don’t make my boxes commercially, they are a hobby, but I have been commissioned several times simply by word of mouth. Commissions are always for someone special and I am usually given a theme – favourite colour, flower, country, hobby – things like that. I have a passion for nature, wildlife and gardens so this theme runs through most of my boxes.

Catered Crop: How did you learn to make those amazing flowers? Do you have any tips for making paper flowers so real looking?

Elaine: Before I make a flower I study it, even if I think I know it well. Where possible I look at the actual flower, sketch it, photograph it and make colour and texture notes. I hit google images big time and often set the images as a screen saver for the time I’m doing the project. It helps fix the details in my head.

I have a checklist in the back of my mind:
- overall shape and colour of the full flower,
- number, size, shape and colouration of the petals
- flower character – is it petite and delicate, bold and showy, droopy, spikey, they each have their own personality.
- is it single – like a snowdrop or does it work in a group – like a bluebell.
- leaves – shape, colour, texture, size
- stem – shape, colour, texture, size.

I have a five-petal flower punch, which is really useful as a base for a lot of my flowers. Where the punch isn’t suitable I make my own paper pattern.

Looking at my notes and images I start playing with paper to see how I can imitate the three dimensions of the petals and flower. There’s a lot of trial and error before I manage to come up with a paper pattern.

Once I know I have the shape I draw round the elements, scan them into the computer and trace them digitally. This way I have a final pattern that I can size up or down to fit my box. I print the pattern pieces (repeated several times) onto lightweight , appropriately coloured card and cut out. From there I colour, texturise and fix the pieces together, always referring back to the flower images and notes.

Elaine was kind enough to give us an exclusive sneak-peak into one of her sketch books showing how she researches and notates her flowers.

Oh darling crafters, there's more. Tomorrow Elaine is going to give us some more exclusives – some tips for how she gets all those amazing textures and colors and the behind-the-scenes look at the magical box commissioned for HM Queen Elizabeth II and HRH Prince Philip's 60th wedding anniversary. Cheerio until then.

March 22, 2011 | Filed Under: Featured Guests, Tips and Techniques Tagged With: Magic Boxes, Tutorials | 1 Comment