Keep Life Simple! - Steampunk Canvas for SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges

Hi and welcome back to another steampunk project for October for my SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenge blog! As usual the theme for this month is "Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial" and more information is given on the challenge blog (that you get to by clicking HERE or using the other link at the end of this blog post. Oh, and if you scroll down to the previous post you will be taken to the Calico Craft Parts Blog, where another new project of mine has gone live this morning...)

A great part of my wonderful team have come up with projects that combine steampunk with Halloween - and that definitely worked well! And those who have been playing along with us for quite some time now know that we also accept projects that are not mainly steampunk or industrial style (even thought they obviously have to feature steampunk or industrial elements!)...so if you are already in full Halloween crafting swing you can still play along this month without having to interrupt the eerie flow - just give your Halloween project a visible steampunk/industrial twist so your entries get eligible for our Top5 and prize wins!

I have already done several Halloween projects this year - which is quite unusual for me - but for my challenge blog project I decided to stick to pure steampunk and mixed media. I have still challenged myself though by trying to come up with a project that was mainly done with bits and pieces that I have been hoarding in a tiny tin and a papier machée bowl on my craft desk - snippets and left overs from previous projects and other tiny bits 'n bobs ...

You can spot a watch makers tin to the bottom left next to an old bottle cap and some MDF laser cut cogs, some frozen charlottes, a piece of coral from a walk at the beach, in the centre there are some die cut and alcohol inked gears pieces and some animal horn pendants. There are also a rusty little metal house and a metal heart, left overs from some of my Bubbalux experiments (the blue stuff),  results from first attempts at using the new Tim Holtz 3D embosslits, some copper brads, a piece of linen ribbon,....oh, well...a mix of stuff that I couldn't throw away and stuff that I like to have in sight so it sparks inspiration at the right time...

I have played around with most of the pieces on a 6'' x 6'' chunky burlap canvas from Canvas Corp Brands and came up with an arrangement that I liked. I took a picture of it before I took it apart again, so I could turn to it for reference in case I forgot about the exact design details...

The piece to the bottom right was one of my very first die cutting and alcohol experiments ever - so it must have been in my stash for at least five years! 

The cogs and gears and the metal fence piece are from Calico Craft Parts, the big star is from That Craft Place I guess. The gorgeous rusty metal house is from Red Lead. Oh, and I have used up the last bit of Dresden paper trim that I was given by lovely Candy Colwell during a swap we made several years ago ;) 

With the right background, the right mixed media products and some textural media added I turned all of these into this: 

It definitely was great fun to create this piece and to see all the parts and sections finally fuse into a little work of steampunk mixed media art during the process. AND I have also used up some of my long hoarded scrap...erm...treasures! I really like that.

On this occasion I also tried to use up some of my oldest spray paints from when I started this hobby. So I threw some Maya Mist and Mr. Huey's on without aiming for a special design. I just made sure that coverage wasn't too even. Then I used the heat tool to dry the spray inks and paints.

I also brushed on a coat of matte DecoArt Decou-Page to prevent any of the inks to re-react with additional media and paints added. It was also necessary to create a base layer for some loosely scraped on white DecoArt media Crackle Paint.

The DecoArt media Heavy Gel Medium was used to fix all the chosen pieces to the canvas and to adhere some micro beads in some spots.

Stampendous Fran-Tage Texture Flakes were added as well. I simply brushed on some matte Decou-Page in the spots where I wanted them and sprinkled them on.

DecoArt Dazzling Metallic paints Venetian Gold, Pearl Moss and Worn Penny were used to paint the MDF pieces.

Once everything was dry, I mixed my own spray paints from water and DecoArt media Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide and another from Raw Umber to tone down certain areas on the canvas. The frozen charlotte had gotten a coat of matte Decou-Page before, so the paint would stick to that as well.

DecoArt media Misters Carbon Black, White and Turquoise Shimmer Mister paints were loosely sprinkled on for a worn look.

The rusty house and some word stickers were given a thorough coat of DecoArt media Liquid Glass for some shiny slick surfaces to contrast the worn and rough look of the rest of the canvas.

I also added bits of Seth Apter's fab Ancient Amber Baked Texture embossing powder here and there...

...as well as some sprinkles of Vintage Beeswax Baked Texture to the frozen charlotte.

I love how the Liquid Glass has created lovely inclusions of the micro beads!

At the end my craft desk looked like this...so many different products on such a small format! 

But they were all necessary to create my rich and detailed textured canvas and I had a wonderful time using them all - seeing the different beautiful effects they gave!

Some close ups to finish off my post:

Thank you for stopping by! I hope to see you play along with us at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges this month! Our sponsors DecoArt and boozybear will be giving away a prize package again to two randomly drawn winners from all proper entries. So don't miss the chance and share some steampunk or industrial style fun with us!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Quickly Customized Gift Box - for Canvas Corp Brands

Hi, servus and welcome to a quick and short invite today over to "The Creative Studio" from Canvas Corp Brands.

I sometimes create jewellery to give away for birthdays of good friends - and most of the time I don't have a wrapping at hand that matches the gift properly. So I hoard little cardboard boxes of all sizes to decorate them when in need for a new gift box.

This time I used several of Tattered Angels' mists and paints and a broken left over piece of an old plaster cast (really...I just cannot through away anything - not even a plaster cast that went wrong...lol) on an old business card box.

And of course I had to use one of my newly bought Tim Holtz design tapes on it! It just went perfectly well with the necklace that I gave away with the box (as it had self made paper beads from old dictionary pages - the tutorial on how to create that can be found over HERE).

To see the full (but quite short) tutorial, please, head over to the Canvas Corp Brands Blog. I hope you will like it!

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Gypsy Travels to my Home with Canvas Corp Brands

Servus and welcome to my blog AND my flat too today!

I am taking you on a tour through my private collections over at "The Creative Studio" Canvas Corp Brands blog to share some of my travel souvenirs, flea market finds, inherited treasures and other beautiful inspiring bits and pieces from my three (!) cabinets and writing desk.

I grew up in a home where my mom (and my grandma) surrounded themselves with beautiful things like porcelain, silverware and knickknackery in general and I have not only inherited some of the pieces but also the love for having my own little "private museum" at home.

In my cabinets visitors will find a mix of beautiful crafted gifts from wonderful and creative friends, inherited porcelain and silverware as well as gifts my lovely sister sometimes brings home from her travels and treasures like souvenirs, flea market or nature finds that I collected myself.

The large keys were a souvenir from our fantastic trip to Turkey and the assemblage to the left was given to me by my SASPC team member and friend Brigitte from France (merci beaucoup, Brigitte! Bisous!)

The little green house was a birthday gift from my sister and the cups and bowls are things I have taken over from my mom's collection. 

And there's a little beautiful story to tell about the small yellowish figurine in the left back: it is a handmade candle that I was given to by one of my pupils before I left my hometown Linz and moved to Vienna to live with my husband. The candle is meant to resemble me and it really looks like I looked back then (with very short yellow hair, my favourite orange shirt and two earrings in my right ear.) The wings aren't visible on this picture, but believe me - I have a pair of beautiful wings!!!! So she made me an angel - how adorable is that!!!! It is one of my most loved treasures that reminds me of my wonderful time as an arts teacher there back in the nineties. ;)

If you want to see more, just hop over to the Canvas Corp Brands Blog.

There are more treasures waiting for you to be discovered. 

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

A Canvas Tag and a Flower

Servus, hi, thanks for stopping by and welcome to my little creative spot!
It's been a long time since I last made a paper flower...but once in a while a project just screams for one and I have to admit: I had such fun creating it! I used the fab "Tattered Florals" die from Tim Holtz (which is the only flower die I have and one of my very first items I bought when starting this hobby).

The challenge for my latest DT project for Canvas Corp Brands was to work on one of their canvas tags from the "Canvas Shapes" line. It's a large, stitched tag made from pure canvas - so paints and mists and other media behave a bit differently on it than they do with paper. So I experimented a lot - with Gesso, aquarellable pencils, scraped on paint, sprayed and sprinkled on Glimmer Mists....and they all turned out just amazingly!

And of course my tag had to have a jute cord loop! 

If you want to see the finished tag and a detailed how-to with steps images over at the Canvas Corp Brands site (alongside another tag that was done by my crew mate Alicja - one canvas tag - two totally different outcomes) just hop over by following the link:

http://blog.canvascorpbrands.com/canvas-tag-what-to-do-with-it/

Hope to see you over there!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Good Things Come in Small Packages - a Canvas Corp Brands Project

Servus and welcome to my first ever invitation for you to check out my full tutorial on this project over at the really inspiring Canvas Corp Brands "The Creative Studio" blog!

As I am pretty new to all the other fab product lines they offer besides the Tattered Angels Glimmer Mists and other fab spray paints (that were among my very first crafting products I bought when I discovered crafty blogland), I was more than positively surprised by the wonderful and wide range of canvas substrates they offer as well as the 7 Gypsies papers and their newly released "Architextures" that I will have to lay hands on soon.

My first project as a Creative Crew Member for Canvas Corp Brands though is rather simple and quick and paper crafts related as they offer beautiful brown Kraft paper bags in various sizes too. And I love working on Kraft!

So this is the finished project:

And here are some of the Canvas Corp Brands products I used to create my little gift bags:

If you are interested in the full tutorial or even in more inspirational input from the rest of their DT, simply click HERE to get to the CCB Blog.

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx