Friday 24 July 2015

How to:- Remove Hot Glue from fabric

I shall be moving this post to a Page  titled HOW TO:- The aim of the Page will be to place tips and tricks I have either learnt or heard about in the hope that some or one of them will help you with your project.
The first How To article is about removing dried Hot Glue from fabric.
The main ingredient is Isopropyl Alcohol found in rubbing alcohol and a cotton bud.
As can been seen in the video supplied* and the photos** the removal of the Dried Hot Glue Stick Glue is soo easy it astonished me the first time I tried it.




What I have found when using this method on silk rose petals:-

First:- The thicker the glue to be removed the better. Upon using the cotton bud to apply the Isopropyl Alcohol to the area with the dried glue, (do ONLY one section at a time),wait 10 seconds and then with either your fingernail of the tip of a knife you can pick the blob of glue off and it leaves no trace.
Use Isopropyl alcohol to removed glue.
Soak one spot at a time with alcohol.












After 10 seconds pick at the glue with either finger nail or tip of knife.



Glue pulls off cleanly.















Second:- When dealing with thin scrappy bits of dried glue then it becomes a bit trickier. First you apply the Isopropyl Alcohol to one small section at a time, wait 10 or 15 seconds and then using the end of a pointy knife and stretching the fabric with your fingers to keep the fabric taught, scape the glue off. This may have to be done many times as can be seen in the images supplied.

Silk rose petals with dried hot glue on both sides. By using a cotton bud soaked in Isoprophy alcohol you can see the before and after.

 

























Reference:- * The video was found on http://www.instructables.com/id/Easily-Remove-Dried-Hot-Glue-aka-Hot-Melt/ and put on by John Mangan (siliconghost)
** The other images are mine (Nicola Tierney) - All images within the blog can be shared for your own personnel use BUT CAN NOT be used in any commercial endeavor.

Saturday 11 July 2015

Books I Have Read - The Railway Children

The Railway Children
By
E. Nesbit

This story was first published in 1906 by Wells Gardner, Darron & Co.  Published in Puffin Books in 1960. Re-printed in 1963, 1965, 1967 (twice), 1968, 1970 (twice), 1971 (twice), 1972 (twice), 1973, 1974 (twice), 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981 (twice)

This story has appeared as a television series and has been made into a film.

I liked two things about this story. The first was the story line. Again it is a story with a happy ending. It is a story with an awful lot going on. There is a secret that you know nothing about until the end. The second is the way E. Nesbit speaks to the reader. I am a fan of this style but I have been told that it is frowned upon these days. I should also say that there is another thing I like, the details. I love stories with lots of detail. Detail about the characters, the emotions, landscapes, the reasons why – which is the background into why the family is in the position it is and how they get out of it. This makes for a long story but I don’t mind that.

I love the way Nesbit has been able to make the ‘voices’ of each character their own. She has a real knack of being able to show how even though there are times when the children niggle and argue with each other, in the end they are a family who love and care for each other and the other people around them.
The story is based in England and revolves around the children’s father being taken away by some men one night and not returning until the last chapter. The children and the reader never know why. Because of this, the life the family, Mother, Roberta (Bobby), Peter and Phyllis (Phil), had, has gone and they are forced to move to the country and live in a cottage called Three Chimney’s near a railway. The servants are gone, the niceties of life are gone and the money is disappearing and they are struggling.
Their mother spends her days writing, writing, writing. She is writing to anyone who will listen to her about her husband’s plight and getting nowhere. She is writing stories to sell to newspapers and magazines to bring in some desperately needed money. She also home schools the children and helps them and attempts to keep them happy. 


The children have lots of time to explore the nearby railway station and many other parts of the countryside. This means they encounter lots of people and help all of them in some way. They stop what would have been a terrible train accident from happening. They save a baby from a fire, a young man who broke his leg in a railway tunnel. This young man (Jim) turns out to be the grandson of the ‘Old Gentleman’ they had been waving to as he travelled on the train every day.
I find it interesting how Mother keeps the devastating situation their family is in a secret from everyone, except Aunt Emma, until her daughter Roberta sees a newspaper article about her father’s arrest. Even then it is only Roberta who knows, the other children are not to be told. This is when Roberta contacts the Old Gentleman for help.
I also found it interesting that the children never seem to ask what has happened to their father, they just accept everything. They accept him leaving, them moving to the county, them suddenly being poor. I am sure the children of today would not take these circumstances so calmly. They would question everything.
The reader learns how Roberta is worried about her mother but does not ask why she is working so hard but if it was not for her the doctor would not have been fetched when her mother gets very sick. Their Mother does not want anyone helping them or knowing that they are poor but fortunately the children have other ideas. In the end this means that the Old Gentleman helps to prove their father innocent and released from jail.


Books I Have Read - The Wishing Tree

The Wishing Tree 
by 
Ruth Chew 

Published in 1980 by Scholastic Book Services. Printed in Australia by Hedges & Bell Pty Ltd.

This a small book for younger readers. 

It is about two children, Peggy (Peg) and Brian, ages unknown but they are old enough to walk two blocks to Prospect Park. The park is located in a town or city in the USA. The story starts with the children leaving the park just as the sky is turning pink as the sun starts to set. As they head for the exit they see an old beech tree with what looks like ‘little faces peering out of it’. A bird sings in its branches even though it is November and old woman, sitting on a stone bench with a shopping bag next to her, was watching the bird. A striped grey cat suddenly runs out of the bag. Now remember the cat as he is important as is what is in the shopping bag.

The cat follows the children home but this is no ordinary cat, this is a cat that can talk. It is also a cat that leads the children into a magical land.  He does this by taking them back to the old beech tree. There they find the old lady feeding a mockingbird on a blue tablecloth. She runs away taking the tablecloth with her. The cat runs behind the tree. The bird tells them he has gone inside the tree and the children follow. 










Nothing is as it seems in this story. The tree is not an ordinary tree, it is a wishing tree and as the children find out it is dangerous to wish for things you don’t really want. The old lady is homeless but she is a thief. The blue tablecloth is not just a tablecloth. The box the children find at the bottom of a pond holds something precious. The cat, as I have said, is no ordinary cat, for one thing he likes watching television. One thing or person I should say, that is definitely not what it seems is the giant. It is not a giant and why is he not a giant because he is an ordinary man who wished to be big and he was. 


But wishes do come true, the giant become his normal human size again after a year of being a giant and following the children and the cat through the beech tree they go from brilliant sunshine into freezing cold snow. Laying on the ground, in the snow, is the old lady.  Fred, who was the giant, picks up the lady, who is not soo old, and carries her and the blue tablecloth back into his own magical land, back into the sunshine. Meanwhile the cat goes and lives with the children because, well because as he says, “Magic is all very well, Peggy. But that tablecloth never brought forth anything to compare with your mother’s pot roast.”
I liked this story, again another happy ending with a bit of a moral, I suppose. Be careful what you wish for, you might actually get it.