Happy New Year and a New Tutorial

Servus and a happy new year to all my (crafty) friends and followers out there!

By now I hope you have had a wonderful Christmas and relaxed holidays! I wish you all the best for 2015 and can't wait to see where your crafty journeys will take you this year!

It's "VonPappe Wednesday" time over at That Craft Place and I want to invite you over to check out my latest tutorial, which will show you how to create this little, vintage and shabby chic door hanger:

You'll learn how to combine some of Lisa's fab MDF and grey board elements with the lush DecoArt Chalky Finish paints, how to create some yummy crackle texture and what there is to dry brushing.

Curious now? Great. Then just follow the link to get to the post and to That Craft Place.

Hope to see you there! 

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia 

xxx

Merry Christmas!

As I have the slight idea that this might be one of the last quiet moments until Christmas Eve, I have decided to do my Christmas wishing to all of my dear blogging friends, crafty colleagues, readers, followers and team mates now. ;)

I want to thank you all for the constant encouragement you give me by commenting and thus letting me know that my blog is a source of inspiration to you. Your comments still are what keeps me going and - most important - blogging.

Thank you also for all the inspiration to all the bloggers and online teaching folk out there! Thank you to the players over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenge blog! Thank you to the sponsors who help make this spot even more special! Thank you to my wonderful teamies! Thank you to Andy, who is taking such great care of me and the rest of the team over at DecoArt! Thank you to Laura, who is the most wonderful friend and caring challenge blog owner of all! Thank you to Kerstin, Manu, Julia and Louise for caring too! And thank you to everyone else I forgot to mention!

To all of you and everyone else who reads this post: 

Merry Christmas to you!

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly." ~Andy Rooney

Claudia

xxx

Three Quick X-mas Tags

Just a quick post today as I should rather do some planning and preparing for Christmas Eve! (what will you be having for Christmas Dinner? Still haven't decided yet between the roast duck or the Morrocan Chicken with the delicious spices and fruit sauce)  ;)

I made some quick 'n easy Christmas tags yesterday and they turned out well enough to be shared:

Just some stamping onto white card tags (using Tim Holtz and flonzcraft stamps) with black and green Ranger archival ink and a piece of washi tape to match the colours of the ribbon. That's it!

I wish all my crafty friends and readers out there a very Merry Christmas and joy- and peaceful holidays with your loved ones! 

Hugs and wishes,

Claudia

xxx

Flowery Meadow Canvas - a DecoArt Mixed Media Project

Servus and hi!

So great to see you stop by my little crafty corner! Today I would like to invite you over to the DecoArt Mixed Media blog so you can find my latest tutorial on how to paint a flowery meadow canvas like this:

Some of you might have already seen the first flowery meadow canvas I have done and posted about over HERE. And as I had such a lovely time doing it, I thought I'd share some of it with you and do a tutorial for you. Thank you by the way for all the wonderful comments on this project - as this canvas is very special to me (and hopefully one of a series of more to come) your appreciation is too. xxx

To get to the full post with a detailed materials list and stepxstep just click the above image or click HERE. 

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia 

xxx

Short invitation

Servus and hello!

Today I would like to invite you over to my other art blog "Von Pappe", where I share my more painterly stuff.

This image shows just a part of the whole canvas (as I have done a rather wide format this time). So if you are ready to meet Bertram, the grasshopper, Pubert, the depressed mosquito and some other meadow folk, just follow the link by clicking HERE.

I would love to see you over there!

Hugs and happy crafting,
Claudia xxx

Double X-mas Challenge Whopper

Servus and welcome!

Today sees the start of the final X-mas countdown as well as the start of two new challenges! Yay!

Well, honestly they are rather one and a half challenge. But I'll explain later. ;)
Are you all well in time with Christmas preparations? Or do you still have no clue what to give to your FIL this year? lol
Anyway I hope you are all enjoying the advent season, having a good glass of punch, some sweet roasted almonds, Stollen and gingerbread!

Why the "double whopper"?
Because I am on two DTs whose challenges for December start today...and over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges we have decided to celebrate the X-mas season with you instead of doing a classical Steampunk challenge. We are well aware that most of us are busy crafting away with X-mas presents and cards, baking cookies and decorating and getting the house clean for the holidays. So Steampunk might be a bit out of focus right now... but there is still a prize to win for December (and it is a fab $25 voucher from Inspiration Emporium - so you shouldn't miss this one!). So if you want to know how to join in our celebration (and get eligible for the prize win) just click HERE to get to the challenge blog and post.

Our Creative Corner have set up a wonderful challenge for you that will take you deeper into a fabby, shabby, vintage, crafty X-mas mood (if you aren't there already ;)
"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas!" is the December motto and if you click HERE you get to Alison and her challenge post to learn more about the details. 

AND this is a "Double Whopper" post because I have two projects to share with you - one for the Steampunk friends and one for the lovers of Our Creative Corner.

Both are ornaments - my favourite crafting projects for this time of the year ;)
 The steampunk ornaments were made from Memory Glass, self adhesive copper foil tape and glued on metal embellishments. Papers used are from Spellbinders.

The "collector of memories" pendant was made from a sanded down facetted Maya Road ornament that was given some alcohol inks and a Tim Holtz idea-ology rub on quote.


My chunky ATC for Our Creative Corner was made from three layers of thick corrugated card which I glued together and wrapped some thin cord around before I went on with embellishing and stamping.

I had a joyful play with various designer X-mas papers (from Authentique and Kaisercraft), washi tape, buttons, distress goodness, wire and stamping some Oxford Impression images.

For the steampunk ornaments I simply spread some gilding flakes from Indigo Blu on top of the cut out papers and "sealed" them with the top glass layer. This way they got pressed and crumpled which I think looks pretty cool.

To glue the clip and the metal stars and gears in place I used E6000 which works terrific with non-porous surfaces!

The rusty bell and the other pendant were fixed to the ornaments with jump rings.

For my X-mas quote on the chunky ATC I found some very cool looking white on black letter cubes (which were originally meant for use with loom band bracelets)! The red tinsel behind them hides the "wrong" side of the "X-mas" so you can look at the ATC from both sides.

The little bunting is self-made and has a piece of glued on designer paper on the back that matches the other side's design.

Both - the chunky ATC and the Steampunk ornament - can (and will) be hanged on the X-mas tree! I especially love that the chunky ATC is so light because it is made of corrugated card. Maybe I will do some more of these... ;)

The memory glass is rather heavy. So I might have to look for a stronger branch to hang these to...by the way...I really fell in love with the Spellbinders "Ephemera Papers" from Susan Lenart Kazmer while creating my steampunk ornaments!

***

Well...that should be it for now. Oh - no!...I almost forgot: make sure you check back with SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges on December 15th! There will be a special announcement that some of you might find exciting too. ;)

I hope to see you over at both - OCC and SASPC - soon! Have a joyful, relaxed and fantastic advent season and as always

hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia xxx

Generous prize sponsors for the challenges this month are:

over at Our Creative Corner

and 

  

at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges