It's Top Talent Thursday!

Gosh! I am so excited to share this with you today!


The team from Our Creative Corner invited me to being their spotlight on Top Talent Thursday today! Whooeeehh! I am so honoured! Thank you once again, Ladies, for this lovely opportunity!

When you hop over to their lovely site, you will find a post today, showcasing me and my latest project along with the possibility to learn a bit more about me and my approaches to crafting and arts in general in a breaf question and answer session.

When they asked me to do a project for TTT, I first planned to do something X-massy, as I have some lovely papers and stamps lying around, just waiting to be used in some festive X-mas-crafting. I rolled thoughts about an Advent calendar in my mind for days and sat down at my table to do something appropriate... only to find myself about an hour later or so right in the midst of another steampunk project *LOL.

Here it comes:

I made some pictures for you, showing the wooden box in its' original state and during its' process of becoming something more attractive, but accidentally I deleted them during the attempt to sort my image folders. Sorry about that!  :(
So, sadly, you can't see it as it looked like in the beginning... it was a simple untreated wooden box, originally containing painted Easter eggs - and the compartments were just the perfect size for storing my ATCs in!! But for the last months it was just some wooden box for storing my ATCs.... well, you know what I mean ;)
There had to be finally done something about that!!!

First I painted the box with white Gesso all over, then I mixed acrylic colours brown, black and copper and gave the box some strokes with a broad bristled brush. After that I sprayed some areas with Mr. Huey's "passport" and  Adirondack Colour Wash "Stream" for some contrast in colour. I stamped some gear images with acrylic copper paint onto some areas too. The insides of the box compartments were also painted with copper acrylic colour. At last I embossed some of the edges with Frantage aged embossing enamels.

 Letting that dry, I stamped some steampunk images onto tissue paper and tore them to size. ( I prefer tearing to cutting, as the images' edges blend in better and less visibly than cut edges when being mod podged).

After I had glued the images onto the box, using Mod Podge, I browsed through my "treasure chest" with all those lovely embellishments and found these gorgeous Tim Holtz idea-ology box feet, some gears and wooden chipboard keys (which I painted with paint dabbers and embossed with Fran tage embossing enamels), Artemio keyholes and labels, which were just perfect for a worthy finish.

Hope, you like the box and will also enjoy Top Talent Thursday over at Our Creative Corner, featuring MOI this time!!!
Thank you all so much for stopping by again!







Wishes,
die amelie xx

 As usual some close-ups as well:

Altered domino booklet

This time I want to share with you my latest "first try" - altered dominoes. There are some amazingly beautiful projects to be found in blog land, which made me want to create one of these tiny treasures myself.

As the main colours used were greens and blues (and there are some red sparkles in the metal leafing too), I dare to enter Vintage Stamping Challenges' "Red/Green/Blue/Purple"-challenge with this project.

I first gave two dominoes a treat with AAI (mainly greens and blues) and afterwards I adhered some metal leaf by stamping a tiny swirl image, using special metal leafing glue instead of stamping ink.
I applied the glue with a small piece of a rough kitchen sponge onto the rubber stamp. After stamping the glue-image onto the dominoes, I immediately cleaned the stamp with soap and warm water, because this glue is very very sticky and the metal flakes should be put on only after some open time. (Otherwise you only wipe off the glue AND the flakes, when you try to rub them in with your fingertip).

I gave the edges the same treatment, applying the glue directly onto the surface with the sponge. The result looked like this:

As I wanted to create a booklet, I had to prepare a tiny accordion, which I cut to size, folded and stamped with images of time pieces, birds and quotes about time flying and precious moments.

The edges of the pages were blended with Distress ink "walnut stain" and were given some sprays of diluted colour wash in green and blue. For a finish I painted the edges with gold acrylic colour. For stamping I used archival inks "jet black" and "sepia".

To be able to close the domino booklet, I fixed two organza ribbons by glueing them to the dominoes together with the first and last page of the inner booklet. But first I attached a hinge to the dominoes, which I had treated with AAI too, to make it look aged and timeworn.

I also fixed a small piece of ribbon to the booklet, that holds a golden eye to provide being attached as a pendant to a chain or ribbon.









I embellished the front cover of the domino booklet  with a tiny ephemera from some of my paper stash and a small key, that was also treated with rust, green and blue AAI to match the pendant.

The whole surface was given two coatings with Gloss Mod Podge. Voila!

Lucky Me!

Just have to show you today, what my very dear and wonderful scrap friend Sandra sent me as a surprise candy! I was so overwhelmed when I opened the parcel, that I even teared up a little. Thank you so much, Sandra, for these awesome goodies! They came just in time to rescue me from a state of lost mojo.(As you may have recognised, I already used some of the goodies in my latest project ;)

Incredible, isn't it? A lot of great stuff, as you can see: stencils, metallic rub ons, acrylic colours, distress ink pads, friendly plastic, ribbons, beautiful ephemera (that pile on the right), even some embossing folders and a lot of lovely charms (which I already sorted into the plastic box on the left, feeling like Dagobert Duck playing with his dollars) and so much more!

Pics of her lovely ATCs and a wonderful tag I got from her, will follow, but I haven't managed to do them yet.

You sure can imagine why I feel the luckiest person on earth, when I see and use all these treasures! Sandra, you are a mahatma and I cannot express how your great gift brightens up my very heart and soul. Thank you so much!

Big, big hug,
Claudia xxx

Foil and Alcohol Inks

Our Creative Corner's actual challenge wants us to use Alcohol inks on foil - one of my favorite techniques! So I decided to join in almost last minute...

So I made another album (have four or five more in my treasure chest, waiting to be altered), using an ATC sized silver metal foil plate, I had made earlier and then put aside, because I didn't actually know how to continue with it. But today its' time had come at last! ;)

I had engraved some swirls into the metal foil, using a mat and an embossing tool. Afterwards I added various tones of alcohol inks to it.

Papers used on the album cover are from a Tim Holtz paper stash and a book about Shabby Chic, which contained a collection of lovely ephemera. I distressed the edges of the cover, the cut to size papers and ephemera and blended them with Distress inks "vintage photo","chipped sapphire" and "walnut stain". Some of them I blended with "antique linen", using a stencil from LaBlanche, I got as a surprise present recently!

It took me quite a while this time playing around with ribbons, brads and embellishments until I was content with the outcome. I had got so many as a present from a very dear scrap-friend of mine, that I really didn't know which ones to choose (or which ones to leave for another project ;).

I hope, you like the result!

"The Storyteller"

This fortnight's FunwithATCs' challenge is "Faces".

I like faces that tell stories. Weathered faces. Faces with smile wrinkles. Faces that are like open books. Faces that take you on journeys to far off places.

To Arabian Nights for example.

For this ATC I used a black felt tip pen with a brush tip on white card,"black soot" Distress ink and  "jet black" archival ink from Ranger. Then I added some stamped script for a little depth. As a finish I added the scratched structure with my beloved "Cover A Card" stamp from Impression Obsession.
Hope, you like it and join our challenge at FwATCs.

Hugs,

die amelie x

Treasure Your Memories!

Try it on Tuesday 's actual challenge wants to see projects based on the theme "Memories".(And remember: their DT-call is still on until Nov. 20th!!)

Another challenge, I enter with this project, is Craft Room's "Time Keeping" challenge. 

The old photographs shown on the lovely projects of the DT at TioT and some of the entries too made me browse through my tin box containing old photographs of my ancestors.

I also thought this challenge theme would be a great opportunity to use my new stamp set from TJ Designs "Birds of a Feather - The Autobiography of a Bird", which I stumbled upon quite accidentally and fell in love with immediately. I also think, birds are a wonderful symbol for the time flying.

Having found some old photographs of some of my ancestors hiking a glacier, I thought, these were the perfect images to capture the meaning of precious moments in life. There's so much adventure-feel in that pictures, being mysty and whitened out at the edges! This finally settled the idea of creating a thin album to keep treasured memories in (with which I also enter TioTs challenge of course).

I chose a paper from the Tim Holtz "Lost and Found" paper stash, showing buttons. This one reminds me of hours spent as a child, going through the buttons box of my grandmother. These wonderful worn and old treasures, silvery or leather covered, some made of horn, some of mother of pearl, some being clear, others opaque.... they always made me wonder, whose garments they once had been on and which adventures they could tell about if they could only speak to me.

So this is all about memories. The clockface with the spinning hand, symbolizing the rush of time ... or it's slowly passing by. I often wonder, how different we feel about time, according to the actual situation and state of mind.

I glued the clear buttons onto some happy faces from a copy of another photograph, which showed a big bunch of happy people enjoying their summer vacation, posing on a weathered boardwalk - supposedly this was taken on the "Traunsee", one of our beautiful lakes in the "Salzkammergut".  After cutting them out, I fixed the buttons with some rough cord to the card, which I first stamped with the lovely bird frame and blended the edges with "walnut stain".

I also played around with lace and fabric this time, doing some layering with card and ribbons.

The hardest part was distressing all the edges of the cover, backing and pages and blending them with "walnut stain". I gave the inner pages some hard times, distressing, blending and sprinkeling with water, as I really wanted them to look worn and old.

The inner pages were also decorated by stamping bird images and cages in Versamark "brown" and "antique linen" Distress ink.

The right picture shows a sample of some of the pages' designs.






The back cover shows another picture of that hiking group on their glacier trip, showing some dramatical lighting. I love, how their silhouettes stand out against that foggy background. And they were posing soo proudly, don't you think? This is, why I also enter Our Creative Corner's "Silhouette Challenge" with this project.

Here also some close-ups as usual. Thanks for stopping by and having a look around. Hope, you enjoyed it!

Hugs,
die amelie xx

 

Fashiontime

It's fashion-time at FunwithATCs challenge blog and I can proudly call myself a member of their new DT!!!

Sadly, I am not at all a fashionista, so the chosen topic "Fashion" was quite out of my comfort zone. But, please, go and have a look at the fabulous ATCs the new DT made!!! They really are worth it!

At least the Tim Holtz paper got me on the right track. ;)

I used Distress inks "pumice stone", "rusty hinge" and "vintage photo", Tim Holtz and Graphics 45 stamps, washi tape, a brad from My Mind's Eye, some cord and a piece of ribbon.

Thanks for your visit!
Hugs,

die amelie xx

Masking - "A Halloween Farewell"

"Our Creative Corner" asks for Halloween Projects done using masking technique. As I love this one very much, I had to do a last-minute Halloween-tag for that challenge.

I started up with some light grey card, which I cut to tag format. Then I stamped all the images I wanted to use in my "single-layer-collage" on Post-it-sheets and cut them out.

Here's a look at the materials I used. Stamps are from Chocolate Baroque, Darcie's, RedLead and Unity Stamps.

Then I stamped the background, using the "halloween" word stamp from Chocolate Baroque's "halloween raven" stamp set and stamping it way down, covering the spaces of the images with the cut out post-it-pieces. 

After that I gave the tag some sprays of Glimmer Myst "Marmalade" and Mr. Hueys "Passport", to add at least a bit of colour.

The hardest part was stamping the images in the right order, to get the collage-image, I had planned, having the right ones covering the other images where they are overlapping each other.



For a finish I blended the edges with "black soot" distress ink and added an orange knitted ribbon.

Hope you like this one!