Potions & Spells at Calico Craft Parts

Hi, servus and welcome to today's invite over to the Calico Craft Parts Blog, where I am sharing my last Calico Halloween project for this year.

Poisonous potions....

...and creepy crawlies (bot only very tiny ones!) ...

...are awaiting you! 

To see the finished project and check the how-to simply click HERE to get taken to the project post!
I hope to see you over there!

Hugs and Happy Halloween!

Claudia

xxx

Inuit Esprit at DecoArt Mixed Media - a new project and tutorial!

Hi, servus and thanks for stopping by!
I just found that I completely forgot to share a short invite to the DecoArt Mixed Media Blog, where you can find my latest DT make as one of their proud DT members!


The title of my project is "Inuit Esprit" and I really fell in love with the little Inuit girl and her kite when I first saw her!

I combined a lot of found "treasures" in this piece - left overs from die cuts, jute cord, a little capsule with lichen in it, vintage buttons, Dresden ornaments, a bottle cap and a piece of driftwood from one of our holidays in the beautiful Austrian Salzkammergut district.

I always buy wooden houses when I find them in the sales section at home decor shops because I just love to use them as a substrate for my assemblage pieces. Houses "speak" to us. They evoke special feelings in us...so whatever is "in" a house, is safe, special and treasured, isn't it?

If you want to know how I built the various layers to create the beautiful aged look and depth, you find all the info and steps images over at the DecoArt Mixed Media blog!

Isn't she just gorgeous? I love that rubber stamp (which is a Tiger store design and was a gift from my lovely sister). 

The upper "button" actually is a seedpod that was once part of a necklace.

And I loooove the traces on the driftwood - "drawn" by nature itself!

I am happy that this piece finally found a good "home" - 

in this Inuit girl's house ;)

I hope to see you over at the Mixed Media Blog. 

Simply click HERE to get to the post!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia

xxx

Halloween Treat Bags for Emerald Creek Dares

Servus, hi, thanks for stopping by and welcome to another Emerald Creek project!

Halloween is fast approaching and I was still in need of some treat bags...so I decided to use the awesome Halloween themed EC embossing powders and rubber stamps to decorate some kraft bags and also add little selfmade tags to them...

Sorry for the poor lighting, but the foggy season has already set in over here in Vienna...so capturing the fluorescent colours from the embossing powders wasn't easy...

Here's a list of EC products used:

EC Fluorescent Yellow embossing powder

EC Tangarine Orange Sparkle embossing powder

EC Wysteria Wonder embossing powder

EC St. Paddy's Day embossing powder

Owls rubber stamp

Treepy rubber stamp

Webster rubber stamp

Ghoultide Greetings rubber stamp

Happy Frog rubber stamp

Bat Charm

other products used available at EC:

Distress paint - black soot

Ranger Emboss It Dabber

Now the how-to!

The tags first:

I already had some cheap wooden tags from the Dollar Store at home...

...and started with giving them a coat of DecoArt Americana "Plum" acrylic paint on which I sprinkled some EC Tangarine Orange Sparkle and St. Paddy's Day embossing powders while the paint was still wet. Then I used my heat tool to melt the embossing powders.

The Happy Frog and Owls were stamped onto some scrap paper and cut out...

...so I could trace their outlines with a white Stabilo All pencil to the tags:

The marked areas were painted in loose brush strokes with white Gesso:

Then I added some DecoArt media Transparent Yellow Oxide and Gold Green fluid acrylics to tint the white background:

The final images of the frog and owls were stamped onto some tissue paper using archival black stamping ink...

...and then "mod-podged" to the tags:

Some additional touches of white doodling here and  there...

....and I used a permanent black marker around the tags' edges and on the backs to paint them black:

Voilá - the finished tags!

Now on to the bags:

I scraped some black DecoArt media Gesso onto the bags using a palette knife and then sprinkled on Fluorescent Yellow and purple Wysteria Wonder to the left and St.Paddy's Day and Tangarine Orange Sparkle embossing powders to the right bag and heat embossed everything.

I stamped Treepy and "Ghoulish Greetings" in black archival ink onto a third treat bag and added black Gesso around the stamped images with the palette knife. Once that had dried I painted the tree's stem and the quote using a white gel pen.

"Webster" was partially stamped onto the bags around the edges.
I die cut Tim Holtz's "Ornate Frame #2" and "Trick or Treat" quote and heat embossed them with Fluorescent Yellow, Tangarine Orange Sparkle and Wysteria Wonder embossing powders (to adhere the embossing powders to the die cut shapes I used an embossing ink dabber). Then I cut the frame in half and glued each half to one of the bags, accompanied by a Trick or Treat quote in contrasting colour.

The Bat Charm was toned down using Tim Holtz's black soot Distress Paint and the tags and bat were fixed to the bags using black and white brads, that also keep the bags closed. 

Some close ups:

I hope you find one or the other idea useful and fun! 

And maybe you would also consider playing along with Emerald Creek Dares this month! There's a $50 voucher to win - and also a shop discount for the three follower ups. ;)

I hope to see you over there! 

Happy Halloween crafting! 

Claudia xxx

Halloween Chunkies at Calico Craft Parts

Boo!....erm, servus of course! ....and hi!...well, I guess I mainly frightened myself ...lol

I am quite sure though that it won't come as shock (or even surprise, because it is the "every other Monday" again), when I say that I would like to invite you over to the Calico Craft Parts Blog where I am sharing some fun and messy chunky Halloween ATCs today.

If you want to know how I created these, simply click HERE to get taken to the post with the tutorial.

Hope to see you over there! 

Have a good start into the week!

Claudia

xxx

Ripper Street at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges

Servus, hi and welcome back to another project, done for our mid-month reminder over at my SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenge blog!

Our challenge theme is the usual one - "Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial"...so loads of ways to approach this challenge and have some messy stamping, painting, doodling, crafting,...fun. ;)

My make is a make-over to be precise. You may already have seen these guys on facebook or over here, when I was sharing the "work in progress" picture...but I decided that they deserved better than just being neatly sketched onto a mixed media board. ;) So here's my finished mixed media portrait! I hope you like it!

I tried to also capture the feel and design of the TV series...and even if the portraits are not to the point (with noses being too big and eyes not in the perfect spots), I am still quite content with the outcome.

I have done some steps images...so if you would like to learn more about how this was done, simply read on. If not, simply click HERE to get to the challenge post with the makes of my wonderful Team B ladies!


I simply started out with glueing torn dictionary pages and other scraps from old magazines to an MDF panel using DecoArt media Matte Medium.

Then I added a layer of diluted white DecoArt Acrylic Gesso to tone it all in.

Once that was dry I went over it with a wash of DecoArt media English Red Oxide and Transparent Yellow Oxide for a vintage look.

I used an image from the internet as my model and roughly sketched the shaded areas using a soft brush and diluted DecoArt media Raw Umber fluid acrylic paint.

Then I added the finer details with Raw Umber using a detail brush.

Highlights were painted using DecoArt media Translucent White.

...and that was also the state I previously shared my painting in on facebook and over here on my blog. I liked it, but I didn't think it was a real stunner or any "special". Just a piece of portrait painting practice...


Sometimes I have to put paintings aside and let them "rest" until I decide whether I want to add something to them or leave them the way they already are. In this case I wanted to add that special vintage and steampunk-ish feel to it that I so love with the TV series.

I started with stippling on gears borders with a bristle brush. I used an Andy Skinner stencil and DecoArt media Quinacridone Gold and Titan Buff.

Then I used a thin acetate sheet as a mask and stippled on more Quinacridone Gold, creating shaded and layered rectangular shapes.

After that was done and had dried, I added a wash of DecoArt media Prussian Blue Hue on top.

I let that dry thoroughly before I went in with a scratching tool and some sanding paper to give my painting a really heavy distress treatment.

As I had sanded off the hats' silhouettes I went back in with more Raw Umber and re-painted the hats.

I also sanded the edges of the MDF panel to create a kind of border. The sanding also highlighted the edges of the layered paper scraps...which added perfectly to the design. Done!

Some close ups to show the cool textures and layers:

Thanks for stopping by! I hope to see play along and share your beautiful steampunk and industrial art with us! Once more the link to our challenge blog.

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx