He/She is a ...

We all are several "persons".
I am a mother, then a wife, an artist, a friend, a sister, an aunt, a daugther...not always in the same order.

And there are days for example when I would like to be more of an adventurer than having to do my household stuff or walk the dog along the same old paths. Sometimes this feeling from inside breaks through and I end up for example  having bought a piece of clothing I thought was perfect for feeling and showing my inner adventurer's nature....not daring to wear it, because the feeling from that day has gone.

Do photographs show what we really "are"? And are we aware that we see more than a one-dimensional person when we look at photographs? I'm not so sure. And my series of four altered playing cards is an attempt to make the beholder think about the persons he sees...

 I used Distress stains and Distress marker ("ground espresso"), designer papers, ephemera, washi tape, used and dried tea bags, DecoArt Decou-Page,  DecoArt media black modelling paste and stencils and word stickers for my four cards. For a larger view click on the images.

Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia 

xxx

Your Favourite Technique Goes Steampunk - April Challenge at SASPC

Servus and welcome back to my monthly challenge double feature day ;)
As you all know by now the challenges at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges AND over at Our Creative Corner go online on the 1st of the month - so, please, scroll down to the previous post if you want to see my make and learn about the challenge theme for Our Creative Corner's challenge. I would really love you to take a look at my make for OCC after reading this post as it is a variation of the same "tray theme", but done with different colour scheme and images - and a lot of thought alongside my heart and soul went into that make just as much as with this one.

But now to my make for SASPC (= Sandee&Amelie's Steampunk Challenges). The theme is

Your Favourite Technique Goes Steampunk

which means that you can use your very personal favourite crafting/stamping/painting/drawing/embossing/....technique to create a Steampunk make for our challenge.

Actually I combined four of my favourite techniques with this project: paper mache, using found (and rusted) objects, creating shadow boxes or trays and assemblage. 

I found these four lovely "moustache messieurs" at the flea market at Vienna's famous Naschmarkt and built the frame around them using thick corrugated card in two layers, washi tape and a lot of scraps from old book pages. 

The rusted springs and the key with the tag that says "Pumpen Aggregat" (= pump power unit) on one side and "Elektrizitätswerk" (=power house) on the other were given to me by my husband's lovely uncle Helmut. I still have a lot of treasures he gave to me sitting in a large box - waiting to be used and given a new purpose. Thank you so much, Uncle Helmut! You are my star! :)

To create the tray I used the photographs as a measure and cut several strips from the corrugated card using a carpet knife and metal ruler. I glued two strips together to achieve more depth with the frame. 

I used washi tape to cover the tops and especially sides of the corrugated card strips so the book paper scraps would stick to them better. Then I glued torn scraps from an old book randomly all over the frame pieces using DecoArt Decou-page matte. I love this stuff as it dries incredibly fast and still takes on colour afterwards! 

If used heavily it even holds the metal parts in place! 

Once all had dried I gave the frame several swipes with Distress stains to achive a weathered and aged look that works well with the photographs.

The fabulous light bulb that sits on top of my creation was given to me by Brigitte from "la maison de coutureuse"! Thank you so much, Brigitte! Bisous!

I gave it a treatment with various alcohol inks before I glued it to the top using the Decou-page glue and sealant again. 

The piece that sits underneath the light bulb is a watch part from an old alarm clock I took apart. 

I love to use items that tell their very own stories.

The more aged they look the better.

And old handwritings always make me wonder who wrote them and what these persons might have lived up to. 

Using such objects on my makes makes them more "precious" to me. Nostalgia may of course be a factor too, but I especially love the idea that if I use things that once belonged to someone who lived in a bygone aera, I help a little to prevent this person from being forgotten. 

I also like that the names and adresses of the photography studios where the pictures have been taken still can be traced. The monsieur to the right (in the upper picture) seems to have dedicated his portrait to his aunt (as on the back it says "Please, accept this portrait as a proof of your nephiew's  everlasting thankfulness, dear aunt!" - no need to mention that his handwriting was done as properly and beautifully as possible....today we would just hit the buttons on our mobile phones and send a short "thanks, auntie" or something like that I suppose). 

I think the expressions on their faces are just adorable, aren't they? And look at their moustaches! Wow! 

"Nonsense!" ("Unsinn!") it reads just to the left on top of the glued on gear. ;)

I like when randomly torn out text passages catch the eye and make the reader associate spontaneous images or scenes.  

I hope you like my assemblage showing the four MM - moustache messieurs! I had a wonderful time at my work desk glueing, tearing and colouring my frame.

What's your favourite technique and how could you use it to create a steampunk project for our challenge? I'd LOVE to learn about it!

By joining our challenge you become eligible for a prize win, Top3 votes and/or being spotlighted in an extra post on our challenge blog! We are an "anything goes" Steampunk challenge blog as long as the makes you enter are obviously steampunk and/or vintage with at least a little Steampunk twist! I would love to see your projects over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges soon!

Hugs and happy crafting,
Claudia x

With a Song in Your Heart - April Challenge at OCC

Alison (aka butterfly) is hosting this month's challenge over at Our Creative Corner and of course she chose a word related theme - this time connected with song lyrics you are to use and display with your creations:

With a Song in Your Heart!

I have always been very much drawn to songs because of their lyrics and there is an album I really never tire of listening to: Nik Kershaw's "15 minutes" from 1998. 

Honestly I really couldn't decide for some days which song to choose for my DT project as they are all together just brilliant observations on daily life issues and "being too human" in many situations, relationship problems or even philosophical reflections on life in general and the journey we are all on. 

I finally decided to go for "What Do You Think of it So Far?" as it matches some of the new Tim Holtz "Found Relatives" images so perfectly.

The song's chorus says 

"What do you think of it so far?

Do you wonder there might be something better?

Do you think about where you are?

Do you wonder where you're going?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD9LTPa_tDs

and these are simply the most essential questions there are to life, aren't they?

You will find that I didn't put the single phrases in their order of appearance in the song but I assigned them to the appropriate stages of life shown in the pictures. Which gives the questions even more meaning as if I would have done one after another.


The words in the metal labels at the bottom of each compartment on my tray are meant to express some outer or more general view on that stage instead of the one person's view who's life stages are shown. I believe that we are never completely free from seeing "us" and "our lives" from society's (or other peoples') point of view too. Which sometimes makes it hard for us to stay true to our very own believes and goals.

 Taking time to rethink our lives can be a good thing! And I am definitely not talking about quarrelling with all the bad things that happened to us in the past. I am sure we all will find things we are proud of or which made us happy and things we'd rather leave behind if we looked back at our journeys so far. Maybe this helps with recognising that mistakes are an essential part of the process and of life in general. We are meant to make them so we can learn from them and find out about ourselves: what we really love to do and where we are only following a call that hasn't been ours from the very start. We don't have to be perfect and we will never be - but we can try to find the perfect balance between our very own duties and dreams, wishes and responsibilities, between loving and letting go.

I know - the question seems rather selfish or even harsh when seeing it combined with the great "quest" of successful marriage ;)
But we have to make a lot of decisions during our lives that we have (or at least think we are meant) to stick with for almost the rest of it. So wondering if there might be something better often prevents us from getting lucky I suppose...waiting for the better thing to come and letting slip a good thing from our hands.
But "love" makes this question vanish, doesn't it?

I remember my son asking me about two years ago why he was born at all and what he is meant to do, fulfil or become "here on earth". The one big question above all the others! And rather difficult to answer....
I told him he was here to make of his life everything he thinks might be good for him and which will make him happy and feel meaningful. And that mankind is here because of some kind of "accidental" evolutionary process (just like all the other creatures and plants on earth) and that it is not our duty to live up to some unreachable higher noble goals or having to follow any of society's actual ideas of living a "successful life".
Well...he surely didn't like my answer as it didn't help him then, but it was the best I could come up with and I believe that I said the right thing. ;)
I really hope for my son that he will be able to live a life that will make him happy!

 Children still are able to trust. And have to have someone and something they can trust in. So the question to "do you wonder where you're going?" might rather be a "no" at that stage ;) When we are children we feel the world is lying at our doorstep and just waiting to be conquered! (Sadly we loose most of this feeling almighty and being great conquerors while growing up).

I made my tray from thick corrugated card (that was a left over from the packaging of our new kitchen's fridge and furniture) and old book pages scraps which I glued over some washi tape using matte DecoArt Decou-page glue and sealant. After all had dried I gave the tray some washes with Ranger Distress stains "vintage photo", tea dye" and "antique linen".

The chorus was printed out on heavy copy paper,  blended with DI "vintage photo" and glued in place. The metal labels were fixed to the images before I glued them into their compartments.

 For a finish I embellished my tray with some goodies I mainly got from Sandra (SanDee1899) and Brigitte (coutureuse)! Thanks again, girls, for all the lovely stuff you sent me! xoxo. I chose of course embellishments that partially are meant to work as symbols with the images and texts they are combined with.

The DecoArt Decou-page holds them  in place perfectly well! I used the gloss version for the fractured doll to add some porcellain effect to it (as it was a plaster done in a mould).

I hope you like my tray and give Nik Kershaw's fabulous song (or even album) a listen! Hope to see you entering the "With a Song in my Heart" - challenge at Our Creative Corner soon! I will love to hear some new songs and see your interpretations! There is a prize to win, the chance to become the challenge winner and therefore get a guest designers spot or the chance to make Alisons's Top3! So get your favourite songs out and start creating! :)

Hugs and happy crafting,
Claudia x

Just Three Colours - Our Creative Corner's February Challenge

Servus and welcome back, dear crafting friends and followers old and especially anew!

Time to introduce to you Jenny's (aka Button) challenge over at Our Creative Corner! This month we want you to go for:


"Just Three Colours - use only shades of blue, brown and plum/purple on your project; no black lines accepted!"


This means that not even black lines from stamped or digital stamped images are allowed with your makes. 
I really loved her idea of banning black lines - it makes us look differently at the use of our stamps and ink pads and opens new ways for new designs. Which always is a good thing! 

Actually the brown paper I stamped on changed the stamped on colours ("gathered twigs", "rich cocoa" and "dusty concord") into a darker tone than I had expected - so some of them look rather dark brown- or purpl-ish...which looks a lot "richer in tone" than a black line ever could. So honestly I really like this happy accident ;)

I tried two tags on which I only used Distress inks "broken china", "dusty concord", "chipped sapphire", "vintage photo" (for blending the portraits) and "gathered twigs". 

Using four of these for the wrinkle free distress technique on a piece of white card for creating the background, some of the lighter blues and browns mixed into a shade of turquoise...which I had not thought about but was obvious to happen - and which I really liked... ;)

As most of it was going to be covered up by a lot of layers I decided to use my tag anyway even though turquoise definitely is not just a shade of blue... ;)



 



I finally was able to get the awesome "Dr. Coffin's Apothecary" stamp sheet from Oxford Impressions with a German stamps shop last autumn and the browns reminded me of old labels...so I decided to make apothecary themed tags. 


 On the first tag I accidentally found that the Ranger embossing powder "brown puffs" is exactly the same colour as the kraft paper I used it on - which makes it look even more like real embossing...wow!

  I played around with the gorgeous sewing stamps from Prima and heat embossing with Ranger "rust" and "brown puffs" embossing powders. 

 

Most of the edges of the stamped and cut out images were distressed. Some of the papers I stamped on were first blended with some blue or purple shades of Distress ink and sprinkled with some droplets of water, to give a more aged look to them. 

 

Making two tags at the same time gave me the opportunity to try (and compare) variations of the same technique or colour effect. I guess I will be doing this more often from now on! 


For the two portraits of imaginative "Arthur Coffin" or "Monsieur Routen" I made a copy of two photographs of some of my ancestors. They fit perfectly, don't you think? 

At least they could be doctors as they look very earnest, don't they? 

But most people in old photographs do...maybe because they had to sit still for a couple of minutes to get sharp images....maybe because having a photograph done was a much more important and honouralbe matter in those days than it is now... I often wonder why my ancestors - even the children - looked so dignified when they had their photographs taken...and how it might have been living in their times... with a lot of technical things working much more slowly (or not even invented then). 

 Have you already heard that there's a prize to win each month now at Our Creative Corner?














 All you have to do is enter our challenge with a make that follows all the challenge criteria and our general rules... maybe you will make our winner, Top3 or even the prize win?! Join in and use blues, browns and purple/plum only!




 




 

This month our generous prize sponsor is Nicecrane Designs! 

See you there!




Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia xx

Fog in the Vienna Woods

After almost four long weeks in bed and at home with hurt ribs and then the flu I finally made it out today and enjoyed a wonderful walk in the Vienna Woods.

I love the fog, so I took my camera with me and tried to capture some of the enchanted landscape.