Showing posts with label Emerald Creek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Emerald Creek. Show all posts

Monday, 13 January 2020

Rust it Up - for SimonSaysStamp Monday Challenges

Hi, servus and welcome to my second post and project as a spotlighted guest at SimonSaysStamp's Monday Challenges this January!




I am so honoured to be invited to guest with them this month and this week's theme definitely was just right up my alley:





Rust it Up

is the theme for this week's challenge and as the beauty of rust of all kinds is one of my favourite themes in general, I found it quite difficult for me to limit myself down to just a few products and items from my stash - but finally I made my choice and this is the result:




I have altered a cardboard box I once bought at a well known Swedish furniture store. It is part of a four piece desk organiser and the other three containers still sit on one of my shelves, waiting to be turned into something more pleasing to look at ;)




I've used the cool Voltage Sizzix die designed by my favourite dies designer - Tim Holtz! As it is a BigZ die it cuts through really heavy grey board - so my panel looks awesomely dimensional and turning it into a rusted and forgotten looking piece of tech gear was great fun! Here's what I did to create this panel:



I started with die cutting all the pieces on the Voltage BigZ die twice from thick greyboard. I stacked the base and circle shaped elements, but only used a single layer for the hand and the screws and washers.

I also cut a piece of acetate to size so it fit between the two circle shaped panels and coloured it using Ranger Caramel Alcohol ink and a piece of alcohol ink blending felt with the blending tool.
I had also stamped a scale - using the stamp from Tim's "The Professor" stamp set - onto some white card stock that I had cut to size using one of the die cut window shapes as a mask to trace around so I could cut it to according size to insert it after blending its edges with vintage photo Distress Ink using the ink blending tool.



This image shows how thick the two layers of greyboard are. The alcohol inked acetate was glued between the two upper layers.


Using Distress Paint antiqued bronze by dipping a soft flat brush into the bottle I painted the voltage indicating device and then sprinkled Emerald Creek Baked Texture Chunky Rust and Patina Oxide here and there on the still wet paint. This way I didn't need any embossing ink to make the embossing powders stick to the project's surface.


I added more heat embossing - this time using Ranger Verdigris embossing powder. Afterwards I dry brushed all the edges using black soot Distress Paint and a flat small bristle brush.


To do so I dabbed a bit of Distress paint on my palette on my glass media mat, then only loaded the very tip of my brush with paint most of which I wiped off on a piece of kitchen roll before I used the left overs on the brush to gently brush that to the edges.



The index hand was given a coat of barn door Distress Paint before I dry brushed its edges too and once that had dried I added a thin coat of Ranger Clear Embossing Powder.


One of the bent shaped panels I had die cut was primed with a layer of black soot Distress Paint and then heat embossed using the Aged Silver embossing enamel from the Stampendous Frantage Embossing Enameling Kit. 
Two small sticky half pearls were used as rivets and given a quick brushing over with black soot Distress paint.

Time to glue everything in place! Yep - that looked quite cool so far ;)


This is a before image of the cardboard container I was going to alter. I took my finished voltage indicating device and rummaged my paper stash for a matching designer paper...


...which was a sheet from Tim's Lost and Found paper stash. It was cut to size and I used the container to measure the height and length of the strip I needed. I also added a finger's width to have an overlap where the paper edges would meet.


Using Tacky Glue - as I had been using before - I glued the paper in place, making sure all the edges were neatly stuck to the box surface. To tone in the paper so it matched my voltage index even better I applied a layer of vintage photo Distress Ink around all sides.


Afterwards I blended the edges of my box using a piece of Ranger Cut-n-Dry Foam and jet black archival ink.


I had decided to add some affirmative quote to my desk organiser and picked one of the beautifully dimensional Tim Holtz idea-ology Quote Chips. It was toned in too using vintage photo Distress Ink and jet black archival ink around the edges.


And because the quote chip tells me to use my wings, I also stamped the order "fly" onto the Aged Silver panel using StazOn black stamping ink and some Hero Arts letter stamps.




Done!

My new desk tidy for my pokey tools, bone folders and drills was ready to use! Yay! 










What is it that you are going to rust up to play along in this week's 
Monday Challenge at SimonSaysStamp? 




Don't forget - there's a fantastic 


to be won by one lucky randomly drawn winner! 

All the products I have used to create my project can be found in their online store (just click on the product names in my write-up to get taken to the product on their shop site). 






Good luck and 
hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia
xxx



Tuesday, 1 October 2019

Life of the Steampunk Party Tag

Hi, servus and thanks for stopping by!

Today we are launching our October challenge over at


and as I am already in Halloween swing I decided to create a Steampunk Halloween tag this time.
And even though I usually use DecoArt stuff for my steampunk creations, I wanted to use my Distress inks and stains that have been sitting in their shelf unused for way too long - and also to remember our players that of course makes using Tim Holtz Distress products and stamps are welcome too. And sometimes I also mix products from both - you can create cool stuff using DecoArt paints and media on pieces you die cut with Tim's fabulous dies! I guess 95% of the dies I have in my shelves (and they take up a lot of place there because I really have a lot of Tim's dies as I love his designs) are Tim's.

But I also wanted to use my Distress and Distress Oxide Inks alongside the Distress Stains again...because Tim's colour palette definitely makes his stamps and dies look unbeatably vintage - and I love that a lot!

So here it is: my all Tim Holtz Tag for our October Steampunk challenge!




I combined the stamps from the "Inventor 2", "Life of the Party", "Stitches" and "Weird Science" stamp sets to create my weird skeleton scientist. The tag I worked on was die cut using my good old (and much used) "Tag and Bookplates" die - still one of my favourite tag sizes to work on.

The background was done using a mix of Distress Inks and Distress Oxide Inks. The final layer were the  calculations from the Weird Science set that I stamped using Fossil Amber Distress Oxide Ink. As the colour shifts towards white when oxidising, it looks as if the maths on the tag were done with chalk (as on a blackboard).




The blood splatters were added using Distress Paint "Barn Door" and a splatter brush.

The stamped and fussy cut images were painted using a detail brush and Distress Stains. I spread a little of the Distress Stain on the palette on my Media Glass Mat and dilute with some water if necessary.





Layering the same Distress Stain colour creates depth and this way you can also shade areas like the leather helmet that was done using several layers of Vintage Photo and Tea Dye Distress Stains.




I also use the inks to tone down brighter colours. The bow tie was done this way - adding Pumice Stone Distress Ink on top of Peeled Paint and Fired Brick.

For the cogs and gears I used Rusty Hinge, Broken China, Pumice Stone and Peeled Paint Distress Inks and also added DecoArt media fluid acrylics Gold and Silver for a bit of metal bling.




The stamped fingers were coloured using a white gel pen. As the inks underneath were reactivated by the wet ink from the gel pen it added a slight brownish tint to the white - which I really like!




I hope I've managed to capture a bit of the colourful little bling-y jots on the stamped and heat embossed spider webs...I used Emerald Creek "Winter's Mistake" embossing powder that creates this lovely effect.



My weird steampunk scientist wears the helmet from the "Inventor 2" stamp set and I have added some DecoArt media Liquid Glass to the goggles, which domed really nicely.




I used Fired Brick Distress Stain to ink the white little felt ball so I had a cute fluffy clowns nose.
All the stamped, inked and fussy cut parts were layered and fixed using sticky foam pads. The tag's edges were blended using Jet Black archival stamping ink.




I hope you like my tag! My funny science dude and I had a lot of fun! Wishing you a lot of Halloween crafting fun too! Maybe you also find a way to add a little steampunk touch to your makes so you can share them with us over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges! There are prizes to win, fame to be achieved by making our Top 5 and only a few rules to check out...




...so I hope to see you play along with us soon!

Hugs and happy crafting!
Claudia
xxx





Monday, 1 October 2018

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