"Steampunk City" ATCs for SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges

Servus, hi and welcome to the mid-month projects share over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges!


The challenge theme is once more "Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial" - so you are free to create whatever makes you happy (as long as it meets our few challenge rules of course).

Team B - which I am part of - have again put a lot of love and labour into creating some awesomely inspiring projects for you! And we already have a lot of amazing entries from our wonderful players (not to forget about the fab makes of Team A)...so there's a lot to find and check out over at our challenge blog (and I am so proud of what the small challenge blog that Sandra and I set up four years ago has become!!!)


This time my April project was done using stuff from my latest Tim Holtz haul. ;)

There's a lot of traffic going on on my "Steampunk City" ATCs! Zeppelins are floating by and shiny metal dust flakes from the many factories cloud the air. Gear shaped drones are monitoring everything that happens down in the narrow streets...these are adventurous times for tough steampunk explorers! 

These are actually altered playing cards but very close to ATCs regarding their size and format...

The playing cards were first covered with old book pages on both sides (so they do not warp!) and then blended with various Distress Oxide inks and spritzed with water to activate the oxidizing process.

The Zeppelins (a flonzcraft design) were stamped onto the cards and partially coloured with a white gel pen. 

The "Cityscape" skyline was die cut from Kraft card that I had used the Distress Oxide inks on as well but then had to darken it with walnut stain to make their silhouette pop from the background.

They were glued to the background and outlined with a white gel pen and a black permanent marker. 

I added some of the fab new Tim Holtz "Aristocrat" design tapes to the bottom. 

Then I stamped on some gears (that are meant to be "drones") and doodled on them with the white gel pen too. Afterwards I sprinkled on whatever metal spray inks and paints I had - from gold and "brushed pewter" to opaque white. 

The cards' edges were darkened using black archival stamping ink and a piece of cut'n dry foam. Done!

After seeing the finished APCs I found that it would also have been a cool effect if I had stamped the Zeppelins across the touching cards so they would float by from card to card...guess I will have to do some more... ;)

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you over at our challenge blog soon! Please, visit my teamies' blogs and leave them a little love if you are able to spare a second or two!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

SanDee&amelie's Summer Special 2016 - Altered Steampunk Notebook

Hi, servus and I hope you have all been enjoying a lovely summer so far!

As every year we are doing the two months long challenge for July and August over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges so you can all enjoy the sun and a great time outside without having to worry about missing our challenge or the chance to win one of our prizes or make our Top5.

Team B (including humble me) are sharing their projects today to remind you of our challenge and provide you with additional inspiration. If you haven't checked out the makes of Team A at the start of July and our additional Extra Steam Power posts, I highly recommend you do so too! Just hop over to our challenge blog and get yourself a good dose of steampunk mojo!

We have three instead of two prizes to give away this time as lovely Glenda from boozybear steampunk chipboard pieces is generously donating another surprise package for a lucky winner!

I have altered a little notebook I have been given by my lovely friends who collect alterable stuff for me!

This is the little notebook in its humble beginnings:

I had a happy, messy play with shrink foil (not sure if this is the proper translation - maybe it is "shrink plastic" in English, but it says "Folie" (=foil) in German), some of my favourite steampunk stamps, DecoArt Dazzling Metallics, black Gesso and modelling paste, the new Tim Holtz Sizzix BigZ "Mosaic" die and a TCW gears stencil.

And this is the result:

Sizzix dies work great on shrink foil! As you can see I also die cut the rectangle ornate frame which I used for another project I am going to share with you over at the SASPC challenge blog later this month.


I used black archival stamping ink to stamp my images onto the frosted side of the cut out shrink foil pieces.

This image shows the rubber stamp and the already shrunk panel to its right so you can see how small shrink foil pieces get (about the third of the original size).

I have to admit that I stopped taking images a little later during the process as I got completely carried away while drybrushing....but I will try to explain everything in detail!

The book was covered with a coat of black Gesso first. Once that had dried I added black modelling paste through a gears stencil and let that dry naturally.

To make the stencilled texture visible I dry brushed the cover with different tones of DecoArt Dazzling Metallics (starting with Copper, then adding Moss Pearl and Teal in some spots). I also lightly dry brushed the cover with a mix of Light Buttermilk and Navy Blue Americana acrylic paints to tone down the metallic sheen a bit.

Sorry that there are no images of the single stages...I mainly dry brushed the cover with different metallic and matte paints and followed my guts until I was content with the look.

The good thing with acrylic paints is: you can go in and add and cover up and add until you like what you see. Acrylic paints are very forgiving as they dry pretty quick...so new layers can be added almost instantly to change the tones and looks.


This image of the finished book shows the different paints and tones I used - you can spot the Copper, the Moss Pearl, the Teal and the Orange Flicker Metallic Lustre:

I also used the Orange Flicker Metallic Lustre to stencil on the "Dream" word.

The edges of the shrink foil tiles were treated with Orange Flicker too. I used my fingertip to apply the metallic Lustre. Then the tiles were flipped over and given a thorough coat of heavy white Gesso at the backs before I glued them to the cover using matte Decou-Page.

I also painted the rubber band that keeps the book closed with Orange Flicker so it would match the design.

The back and spine of the notebook were painted with black Gesso too and then given light strokes of Orange Flicker and Cosmic Blue Metallic Lustres. Et voilá!

The advantage of using black Gesso as a base coat is that you can directly add the black modelling paste to it and that they form a great base for adding on paints (without the use of having to paint a base layer of a darker tone first). I also sprinkled on some gold and dark brown spray paints and stamped on a crackle pattern here and there for more texture:

And that pretty much sums up the whole process. I hope you like my little steampunk notebook and leave inspired!

There is time until the end of August to enter up to 5 projects (instead of the usual 3 projects per player limit) to our summer special challenge! So I hope to see you over there and play along soon!

Hugs and happy summer crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Fragile

I created a new panel from paint board yesterday, having a heavy play with acrylic colours, DecoArt Dazzling Metallics, DecoArt modelling paste, stencils, wire, some rusted keys (given to me by dear Uncle Helmut ;) and my new Red Lead word stamps.

For those who want to take a closer look at the project I set up a new blog "Von Pappe", where I plan to focus on the more personal makes and on those my heart belongs with. (I don't intend to do an announcement over here for every new project I put up over there, because I assume then I could post all of it right here and would not need the other blog anyway - so if you are really interested take a closer look at the Von Pappe blog from time to time ;).

I recently found that VonPappeII looks so crammed with all the blinkies, badges, followers icons and snippets that one cannot easily focus on the make itself. So I decided to have two Von Pappe blogs...one being the more fun and interactive one and the other being "pure art" that (hopefully) mainly speaks for itself. So if you might want to hop over to see more details of my project I would be very happy.

Hugs and happy crafting,
Claudia x

A Very Vintage Christmas! - Our Creative Corner's December Challenge

Welcome back , dear readers, followers and crafting friends,

to another edition of Our Creative Corner's challenges!!! Laura, who is your lovely host for this month's challenge, chose

A Very Vintage Christmas

which means you are to use neutral colours only!

Seems the 1st of the month will be a double-feature day over here in the future as it presents TWO new challenges - the one over at Our Creative Corner AND at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges! So, please, check out both as they are really worth a look and I hope both provide a lot of crafting fun and inspiration for you. 

Back to the Very Vintage Christmas:

I admit this was a rather hard job for me to do as I rather seldomly dare create "vintage" combined with that touch of delicacy neutral colours add to this sort of makes.

I used a lovely stamp from Red Lead for the cones and a script stamp with X-mas greetings for the background. The flourishes were die cut using the Tim Holtz "mini flourish" Alterations Sizzix die. Some sprinkles of dark brown and gold for more texture and a velvet ribbon added to the bottom for a more festive feel. I also added some tiny blots of clear stickles for a bit of "snowflake bling" - done!

I hope you like it and you definitely should check out the vintage X-mas makes my awesomely talented teamies have prepared for you over at the challenge blog!!!
I so look forward to see your entries (which will definitely put me in a very merry mood ;)

As usual some close-ups:

If you also want to know the new challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges, scroll down to the previous post. ;)

Hugs, happy crafting and enjoy the pre-Christmas period!!!! (I definitely will ;)

Claudia x

I enter this tag to the following challenges:

Fashionable Stamping Challenges - In the Holiday Spirit
The Artistic Stamper - Anything Goes
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Anything Goes

My Morpheus Box

Well, today I am really proud to be able to share with you my very first assemblage piece of art!

The awesome Micheal deMeng online class was a gift from my husband and I LOVED it!!! To me this workshop was enlightenment on new ways of painting, encouragement to leave traditional ways of creating art behind (of which I had learned a lot at university but never felt very much at home with) and - what is most important : be daring and have a lot of fun!

So I Dremel-ed, I went to Vienna's famous Naschmarkt flea market on the hunt for beautifully rotten objects to add to my box, I sculpted, I used my drilling machine and saws again... well, actually I felt like in heaven this approach to creating art being so very natural to me.

The finished project looked even surprising to myself *lol.

So beware of a picture heavy enthusiasmic post today ;)

As the fun thing with the Morpheus Box is that it has a spinning block with four sides, each displaying a different painted image, I start with showing you my favourite painting: "Grandma".

All the paintings were made by painting over copies of old photographs from my personal stash (I hope my ancestors will know that I meant no offense by turning them into ghoulish beings ;).

This picture shows the spinning mechanism on top of the box. You turn the block inside the box by switching the tiny gear on top to your desired position. Cool, huh?

The idea of attaching horns to the box crossed my mind when browsing through e-Bay on the hunt of metal findings or other old rusted stuff... I stumbled upon a shop that sells animals skeletons and horns - perfect!!!

Attaching them to the box was the greatest challenge for me as it meant I had to cut the horns to size (wearing mask and goggles and using my Dremel on the balcony making a lot of noise I guess my neighbours had some rather weird sight that day *lol).

The last step - fixing the spin mechanism with the screw that holds the wood block in place inside the box - was quite tricky, but after a while of fiddling I managed to saw and file a wooden dowel that fit with the screw's head...

I coated the two pieces with Apoxy Sculpt, gave it some texture with a fine tool, let it harden and painted it afterwards as I painted the outside of the box using fine sand texture paste first and acrylic colours on it after it had dried.

The inside of the box was coloured using a mix of GlimmerMists, Perfect Pearls Mists and mica flakes, as I wanted to have something dark but at the same time shiny to show as a background and surrounding for the images.

This image shows the box in a very early state - there I just had the two rusted hinges which I wanted to use as "wings".... no idea that I would attach some spooky horns too at that time.

I played around a lot during my working on the box and thus came across two metal hanging ornaments I had been storing for quite some time then.

I attached them to the hinges using some raw wire.

I love how they dangle a little.... thus adding more movement to the box.











The clock face is from Prima's finnabair collection and I fixed it to the Jugendstil fitting using thin wire, trying not to work too neat and proper.











I tried to give the outside of the box a timeworn and rusted look, using the techniques I have learned with the wonderful Andy Skinner "Timeworn" workshop.
















I love the look of rust and decay and colourful patina! Painting verdigris is a lot of fun actually and it always is surprising how it alters a normal everyday item into something that looks as if it has seen a long time span passing by...

Painting the areas of the horns emersion points was the trickiest thing to do, but I finally managed to find the right colour mix for "goat horn" ;)

I did not paint the horns though as I love their natural colour and texture and did not want them to look artificial.

I love how they "frame" the box and drive the focus from the base to the top of the box, thus integrating the boxes surrounding.

As you have already met the "boys" and "grandma", I only have to introduce you to "dad" and "mom"... ;)

Some of you may recall "mom", as I used her with one of my earliest tags. 

Thank you so much, dear crafting friends, readers and followers new and old, for staying with me this far! I hope you like my Morpheus Box!

Hugs and happy crafting!

die amelie x

Steampunk Challenge - June: Underwater!

This image shows "salmo platycephalus rota dentata" (the common gear sea trout) in its natural surroundings. It has already been discovered within depths over 200 metres but usually inherits the brighter reef zones. ;)

Also very old and fairly rusted specimen have been discovered with the stomachs of grown up squid too - so its age can be estimated to reach more than two years really, which is exceptionally old for trouts in general. Maybe "salmo rota dentata's" elongated life span has something to do with their metal skin, which makes them rather non-digestible bait for trouts' usual enemies.

;)

Hi there and welcome 

to June's challenge over at 

SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges! 

This month's theme is 

Underwater!

We want to see your 2D and/or 3D creations. As always with our challenge it is "anything goes" - as long as your projects stick to the theme in some way. 

This month I have the pleasure to present my project along with  SanDee1899's and Drycha's awesome underwater creations (and Drycha, owner of 3rdEye stamp shop, has also prepared a new stamp design on this occasion to be released! Cool, huh?)

I promised her - as this month she is also our prize sponsor - to use 3rd Eye stamps only - which really was not hard to keep as she offers some great Steampunk stamps with her collections too. ;)

To start with, I first have to show you one of my crafting hobbies I share rather seldomly: crafting with paper cut out sheets. 

I had this lovely trout I once made and wanted to use it for my inspirational project for this challenge. 

So first I covered the  trout with some GlimmerMists and other metal colour sprays to achieve a metallic and pale blue surface for further treatment. Then I stamped the lovely gears and cogs stamps onto some tissue paper and let that dry. 

You can see the 3rd Eye stamps to the right (already mounted to some cling foam) and partially cut out  prints waiting for the next step: glueing the images onto the trout using Mod Podge. 

After that had dried I coloured some of the gears using a white gel and a blue brush felt tip pen and added some copper "Inka Gold" along  with  some tiny blotches of Mr. Huey's "gold" here and there. 

I also die cut some gears from metallic blue card and glued them to some of the fins and the gills. I adhered two tiny metal gears to the corners of the mouth to add some real metal. Then I created a stand from metal wire for my trout to pose on and fixed it using the hot glue gun.


Voila!

I hope the images show a little of the sheen of the copper rub on and gold spreckles - this one was quite difficult to photograph to be honest. So here come some images and close ups for your inspiration:

This close up shows the use of the 3rd Eye script stamp which I really love as it is so versatile for creating texture! 

You can also see the coloured gears and the partially used script image with the fins. I also drew some blubbles onto the surface to create the impression of "underwater action". ;)

The tail fin needed some special care: I stamped the two great bulb light stamps using archival black ink onto some tissue and glued the cut out pieces to the fin using Mod Podge. After that had dried I added some white highlights with a gel pen too. The edge of the tail fin was decorated with mica fragments as I felt my trout needed some "recognition mark" - so it cannot be mistaken for "salmo trutta rota dentata", that has a quite unremarkable tail fin.

 

Salmo platycephalus rota dentata's quite vulnerabel stomach to the left. You can well see the copper markings that make this specimen so very special. 

Thank you for stopping by! I hope you had some fun and leave quite inspired and ready to go for your own projects to enter with our June challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk challenges! 

See you!

Hugs,
die amelie x