Carry It! - a Stencil Girl Project

Hi, servus and thanks for stopping by!

It is my turn today over at the Stencil Girl Talk blog, where I am sharing an altered leather bag from a thrift store. Each design team member had to do a project for a "What's Old is New Again" feature and combine it with the actual month's theme.

So when I saw the "Carry it" theme for March, I was looking out for either an old suitcase or a handbag (because you can never have too many hand bags, can you?). If you hop over to the Stencil Girl Talk blog, you will find a short video of me, hunting down "my" bag in the Carla thrift store and you will also find the tutorial over there. ;)

I hope to see you over there! 

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

This Monday it is "Ahoi!" instead of "Servus!" at Calico Craft Parts

Ahoi! Welcome to my usual biweekly invite over to the Calico Craft Parts Blog, where I am sharing a new project that is a nautical theme this time.

My husband, our good friends and I not only love pen-and-paper role-playing but some of us also do (or did...as we are slowly getting too old to run around, fight and camp in old castle ruins and other locations like that ;) live role-playing which involves designing and making costumes and equipment by hand (which is an essential part of the fun)!

Lately we had a very fun Murder Mistery Dinner in a Vampire setting and dear friends of us decided to do another one - this time as pirates in the Caribbean, having to solve another murder case. They have invested a lot of time, effort and thought into writing up their own story and preparing all the characters and info sheets for us and next weekend we will all meet - dressed as pirates of all kinds - and have a lot of fun again ;)

For this occasion I decided to create a book box in which to store any info sheets and other notes for my role (I have already started a list of impressive pirates curses for example) - and luckily the Calico Craft Parts  Book Box Kit is just perfect for this!

And not only the Book Box Kit as you can see....

There are lots of fabulous nautical and ocean themed wood shapes in the Calico Craft Parts store, so I could easily do ten more without having to repeat myself (and I can tell you picking parts for just one possible design was really hard....I loved them all, but had to decide on parts for just one book box for starters).

With just a few DecoArt paints and products and some lovely map wrapping paper the book box was quite quickly and easily done. The more detailed description of the how-to can be found over at the Calico Craft Parts Blog as always. Hope to see you over there!

Hugs and happy crafting! 

Claudia

xxx

Hand Painted Folklore Style Jewelry - a DecoArt Mixed Media Project

Hi, servus and welcome to a short invite over to the DecoArt Mixed Media Blog, where I am sharing my latest project.

DecoArt have recently released a new product - "Stylin" Multi Surface Fashion Acrylic.
Being a hoarder of all sorts of alterable stuff I luckily (hahah!) had some leather scraps hidden in the backs of my shelves that now called to be used for trying these out and creating some gorgeous wearable fashion mixed media art.

I have recently started to explore folklore art because I love that it is close to doodling but also combines this with a playful way of designing and an exuberant painting style that is related to the tradition of former painters' "horror vacui", which is a Latin term used in art history for "fear of the empty space" and describes painting styles that aim for complete coverage of a surface with loads of detail, shapes and patterns instead of have filled and painted in space contrast some empty or negative space (as is more usual with contemporary art). 

As you can see folklore style even makes me, the grunge girl,  go for bright and joyful colours. ;) 

More info about the Stylin paints, the full tutorial and many detailed steps images are waiting for you over at the Mixed Media Blog. 

I have also taken steps images of the painting process so you can follow and recreate the cuffs if you don't want to go for an own design. 

Hope to see you over there soon!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Tea Time and Steampunk

...go together really well I found. ;)

See?
I was so happy when I found out that "Tea Time" is not only part of "Steampunk Time", but that you can also arrange the letters symmetrically. How cool is that? (and those who know me know that I love me a good dose of word and letters play ;)


There are some new fab wood shapes out in the Calico Craft Parts store - like the plain scrabble tiles I have used to put my letters (also from Calico Craft Parts) on...or some amazingly cool Mechanical Clockwork wood shapes like this one:

I have come up with a new way of painting these intricately detailed wood shapes so they look even more dimensional and defined and yet still keep all of the beautiful laser engraved texture and detail (because it easily gets covered up with acrylic paint if you apply it too generously).


Oh, and what a pleasure it always is to browse my stash of Mini MDF Wood Shapes - just to find perfect matches for designs I have in mind...and also one or the other bit to add to a design and create even more interest...

Of course I have used some of my favourite DecoArt products and paints to create some matte metallic bling (love the new Matte Metallics!), a subtle interference paint effect and - of course - cool crackle.

There's a detailed tutorial and loads of images over at the Calico Craft Parts Blog. I hope you will join me over there!

Hugs and happy crafting

and - as always  -

have a good start into the week!

Claudia 

xxx

Recall for Robot BR0730am! - a Tag for SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges

Attention, attention, dear customers!  Robowell are doing a recall for Robot BR0730am due to malfunction and possible danger of fire!!! There seems to be a severe malfunction with the GMS ("Greet the Morning with a Smile") and the FS ("Fried Sausages") modes that in a worst case scenario could even set your home on fire!

Customers have reported several issues of severely burnt sausages and grim looks and also sent image proof:

NOTE: do not try to fix your BR0730am yourself! Instead return the product with bill and - if possible - in original packing to Robowell asap! All electronic shops are advised to accept returned robots of this type and will assist customers with refund procedures! 

***

Hi, servus and welcome to today's project for the launch of our March challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges! 

I had so much fun creating this little robo chap with an obviously faulty circuit! (and I really would love to be able to get these delicious British breakfast sausages over here in Vienna too...sigh...not burnt ones of course). 

Just look at this cute grim face! giggle

I really adore this dies set from Tim Holtz's latest releases. It's great fun and the possibilities for creating whimsy little robots of all kinds seem almost endless. The idea for my grim little breakfast robot came from the die cut pieces lying on my desk...I suddenly saw the angry "eyes" in the filament...and the grim expression on the "mouth"....and the sausage pan...and there it was....a breakfast robot gone mad! (do I need to mention that I am a huge fan of Nick Park's "Wallace and Gromit" films? ;)

I also enjoyed taking out my alcohol inks again after not having used these for ages...

I used Tim Holtz's "Foundry" 3D embossing folder and silver metallic foil to create the tag's background. The tag itself was cut from really thick greyboard, using the "Tag & Bookplate" die from Tim Holtz. All the layers were glued together using DecoArt matte Decou-Page. 

Then I added a coat of sprayed on matte varnish, so I could paint on the alcohol ink background without having it being reactivated or coming off. 

I painted a background for the lit bulb with DecoArt media Translucent White. 

Black soot Distress Crayon was used to darken the tag's edges and the white one to create a subtle brightness around the bulb.

I had cut out the robot's pieces from black cardstock. To make my filaments shine really bright I needed to first paint these with DecoArt Titanium White media fluid acrylic paint...

...before I could add some bright light in Hansa Yellow Medium.

The robot parts were painted using a huge variety of DecoArt Metallic paints...

Here's an image showing all the different metallic paints (and other DecoArt products) I have used:

DecoArt Metallic Lustre "Radiant Red" was used on the little gauge. And I varied matte and shiny metallic paints for more interest. I used the new and fantastic DecoArt Matte Metallics "Pewter" and "Aged Bronze" alongside the DecoArt Dazzling Metallics "Moss Pearl", "Teal" and "Copper" and DecoArt Extreme Sheen paints "Vintage Brass" and "Bronze".

The gauge window first got a coat of DecoArt Triple Thick. Later I decided to add some DecoArt media Liquid Glass to it for even more dimension.


The burnt sausages were painted using DecoArt Chalky Finish paint "timeless" (as a base layer) alongside DecoArt media fluid acrylics "Transparent Red Iron Oxide" and "Carbon Black".

Then I made a mistake (already half knowing that it might be one...) and tried to use the Liquid Glass to glue the die cut acetate bulb to the finished robo face. 

Uh oh! What I had already feared happened: the Liquid Glass reactivated all the layers underneath and the painted bulb background came off the silver foil...as did the alcohol inks. All the paints and inks mixed with the Liquid Glass and created a brown muddy glue liquid on top of silver foil shining through here and there. Arggghhh! I had hoped that the varnish and the acrylic paints on top would be enough of a barrier but sadly they weren't.

So after waiting for a while (hope fading) and watching disaster grow and take over, I removed the acetate and tried to clean off whatever I could. Gladly the Liquid Glass had at least fixed the top layer of the painted die cut face pieces to the back of the acetate - so didn't have to redo these.

I die cut another bulb background from some beige paper I had at hand and painted a new bulb with DecoArt media fluid acrylics Titanium White and Hansa Yellow Medium again. Then I glued that bulb layer to the tag and fixed the acetate as a top layer to the background by only applying the matte Decou-Page with a detail brush to the backs of the filament and mouth. That's something I will try to remember doing when next trying to fix acetate to a background without wanting any visible traces of glue. ;)

Phew! So rescue was a success! There were still some smudges and stains from the Liquid Glass and the alcohol inks that had been reactivated by it on the acetate, but that actually added beautifully to the worn and grungy look of my tag. 

The other bits and pieces were glued to the tag using the matte Decou-Page and my detail brush again. 

Taking good pictures of shiny projects always is a challenge....sigh...

Some detail shots:

I hope you like my little robot as much as I do! 

My teamies have come up with more steampunk fun and/or goodness to fuel your inspiration! Check out their makes by hopping over to our steampunk challenge blog. I would love to see you play along this month. Remember - we're giving away two fab prizes each month (being donated by our wonderful prize sponsors DecoArt and boozybear)!!! 

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx