Emerald Creek & Stencil Girl Blog Hop

Hi, servus and welcome to my little creative spot! I am very excited and honoured to be part of the fab three-days-long Emerald Creek & Stencil Girl Blog Hop on Day 2 today!

Yesterday wonderful Seth Apter himself together with Mary Beth Shaw, Kim Evans (my lovely boss from Emerald Creek) and Vicky Evans kicked off this great event.
Today it's my turn to share my inspirational project with you alongside Gwen Lafleur, Mary C. Nasser and Chulia Chupik.
And on the final day, tomorrow, Janet Joehlin, Tina Walker, Diana Hetherington and Karen Bearse will finish the blog hop off with their projects. (if you read on you will find the links to their projects and blogs all listed and ready to take you through the hop).

And what would a blog hop be without a cool...

GIVEAWAY

One lucky winner will receive a $25 Gift Certificate to StencilGirl Products

AND a $25 Gift Certificate to Emerald Creek!

Enter to win by leaving a comment below.

Then be sure to visit the other blogs in the hop and comment to win.

The more blogs you comment on, the more chances you have to WIN!

One winner will be chosen at random from all blog comments!

(One comment per blog please.)

You have until Tuesday, December 19th at 11:59PM Central Time to leave your comments.

Winner will be announced on

StencilGirl's Facebook page on Wednesday, December 20th.

And there's another fab give away waiting for one lucky winner!
Seth Apter himself is giving away this
amazing piece of art he created for this blog hop!

Cool, huh?

Blog Hop Order:

December 13

Seth Apter

Mary Beth Shaw

Kim Evans

Vicki Evans

December 14

Gwen Lafleur

Mary C. Nasser

Julia Chupik

Claudia Neubacher (you are here now)

December 15

Janet Joehlin

Tina Walker

Diana Hetherington

Karen Bearse

So have fun hopping and getting loads of wonderful inspiration from Seth and the Emerald Creek and Stencil Girl ladies!

Being mainly into industrial and steampunk style art, to me Seth Apter's stencil (and dies) designs being combined with the amazing Emerald Creek embossing enamels are a match made in crafty heaven! But of course there are plenty of other fab stencil designs for everyone's taste and liking to be found with the Stencil girl range and by visiting the others' blogs you'll find that the possibilities to create from their stencils and Kim's wonderful embossing powders are endless.

List of products used on my project (honestly I threw on almost everything "Seth" I have...lol):

Stencil Girl stencils - designed by Seth Apter:
Urban Insiders Bar
Urban Insiders Square
Past Present Future
Techno Insiders Circle

Emerald Creek embossing powders:
Charred Gold
Burnt Copper Leaves
Hammered Metal
Steel Sapphire
Aztec Gold
Clear Chunk Gloss

Additional Seth Apter stamp sets used:
Spinners
Triptych
Turnarounds Set 4
What will happen...

Additional Seth Apter dies sets used:
Robo Ring
Robo Bar
Pocket Watch

I had this thin journal at home that had a plain kraft cover - just perfect for altering it and turning it into a keepsake for precious thoughts and memories!

To keep the journal's pages safe from being accidentally painted or stained, I inserted a sheet of scrap paper between the cover and the first page. Then I used Seth's "monoprinting with paper" - technique (as I call it) to create a quick background for my cover. (sorry for the poor pictures, but it was very dark outside all day long and this was the best I could get from my lighting and picture editing without loosing too much detail). 

Working on several sheets of  manila cardstock at the same time, I brushed on various acrylic paints with a wide flat brush and pressed and rubbed the wet paints from one sheet onto the others until I was content with the look. 

I created more sheets than I actually needed for this project - but I love having plenty of beautiful papers to choose from. I added sprinkles of dark blue paint to the dried cover using a heavily loaded brush and diluted acrylic paint. 

Using Seth's dies I die cut a pile of various shapes from different backgrounds so I had a stash to play with.

I also die cut the same shapes from heavy black card and made sure I had at least two pieces of each design...

...so I could use some for layering and others for heat embossing them with some of Kim's great embossing enamels.

 When heat embossing the pocket watch frame with Steel Sapphire embossing powder I also sprinkled on traces of Hammered Metal embossing enamel - I love to mix embossing powders like that.

I embellished some of the die cut panels with word stickers and added two coats of Emerald Creek Clear Chunk Gloss to create labels and frames. 

Some of the die cut pieces were given additional texture by randomly stamping them with Seth's designs.

I also heat embossed some of these with the Clear Chunk Gloss embossing enamel.

I stamped some of Seth's designs onto the cover using StazOn "Ganache" ink. Then I grabbed the beautiful Stencil Girl stencils I was kindly given for this blog hop event and created a second layer on my cover using beige chalky finish paint and opaque orange acrylic paint. I used the Techno Insiders Circle stencil on top of the stamped on circle near the centre to create my focal element. They are a  perfect match, aren't they?

Then it was time to play with all my die cut, stamped and heat embossed pieces! I used tacky glue to fix them to the cover. Some were outlined with a white gel pen and/or a black fine tip china ink marker.

Some detail shots that show the layering and "weaving" of the die cut pieces, the stencilled on patterns and stamping.

And once more the finished journal:

Now it's time to visit the others' blogs and check out their amazing makes! Loads of yummy inspiration are waiting for you - I promise! 

Thank you so much, Stencil Girl, for this wonderful opportunity to play with your fab stencils! Thank you, Kim, for the incredible embossing powders you create - they brought me into loving to work with heat embossing! And thank you, Seth Apter, for your awesome designs! They really never fail to inspire me!  

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Time to wish you all a very...

..., my dear creative friends from all over the world!

 Christmas is fast approaching and over at the Calico Craft Parts Blog the whole design team are already in full Christmas crafting swing. So am I and the image teaser above - as always - just shows a detail of my latest project...so what could it be waiting for you over there today? ....yes, my latest tutorial and project of course...lol. Simply click HERE to get taken to the post and the Calico Craft Parts Blog. I hope you will like my little Christmas project!

Hugs and happy Christmas crafting!

Claudia

xxx

A Very Merry Steampunk Christmas!

Hi, servus and welcome to my make for Round Two of our winter special challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges!

Each year we open a two months long challenge at the start of November, so our players and the DT have enough time to enjoy their Christmas crafting and are still able to play along. So the makes of Team A have already been presented on 1st November over HERE and today it's time to share the projects of Team B. The challenge will be open until the end of December!


I created a set of three steampunk gift tags this time...but these could also be used for decorating the tree if you do both sides of the tags. I simply painted the backs of mine black.

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and happy holidays, dear steampunk mixed media friends (and of course I hope to see you play along with us soon ;) !

To share a bit of Christmas joy I have also decided to add a little extra prize to our winter special challenge - a little surprise package donated by humble me.  So playing along gives you the chance of winning one of three prizes this time! 

And now on to the tutorial for my steampunk tags, which are made really quickly and easily. I used some of the new fab DecoArt Americana premium media and paints (but am still only starting to experiment with them as I only got this wonderful surprise package from DecoArt some days ago...yay, Christ Child has been here already! :) )

In their range you'll find 47 of the cool colour tones most of which we already love and know from the media fluid acrylic paints range. The premium acrylics are heavily pigmented and  provide medium-viscosity and satin sheen. There's also black and white Gesso as well as an extender, matte and gloss medium. 

I used the black Gesso on the wooden tags that I got from the dollar store. It's very creamy and easy to apply and if you only add one thin coat the texture from the wood still shows through. I used two layers on my tags though. The Gesso dried really fast. 

I also applied two layers of black premium Gesso to some die cut gears and three wood panels. As it is very creamy and spreads easily you don't need much of it to get good and even coverage.

Once the Gesso had dried I applied black DecoArt media Modeling Paste through the fab "Short Circuit" Americana stencil and let everything dry naturally. 

The gears were painted with two coats of DecoArt media Metallic Silver, DecoArt Extreme Sheen Bronze and Vintage Brass. 

Using my fingertip I rubbed Lavish Green, Orange Flicker and Brilliant Turquoise DecoArt Metallic Lustres onto the raised areas of the stencilled on circuit. 

Black Shimmer Metallic Lustre was painted onto the wood panels using a soft brush and a little water. 

The pieces were all dry brushed using a wide flat and worn bristle brush and DecoArt Americana premium Carbon Black paint which worked just perfectly!!! 

Dry brushing makes such a difference, doesn't it? You can turn something bling-y and shiny into aged- and worn looking only by adding traces of black paint. So cool! 

I added some quote stickers to the small wood panels and then fixed all the parts to the tags with matte DecoArt Decou-Page. I also covered the quote stickers with a thin layer of the Decou-Page to seal them to the surface properly. 

The tags were finished off by adding three little self adhesive metal stars...

...and cord loops. 

Done! 

Wishing you 

a

very merry steampunk Christmas

and 

happy holidays!

Claudia

xxx

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells...

...whose sleigh could it be, I hear coming from the snowy forest?

If you want to find out, I would like to invite you over to the Calico Craft Parts blog. I am sharing a really quick and easy home decoration project for the Advent season. Simply click HERE to get taken to the post with a full tutorial.

I hope to see you over there!

Hugs and have a good start into the week!

Claudia 

xxx

Time to Yodel at Calico Craft Parts

Servus, hi and hollodrio from the Austrian chick on the Calico Craft Parts design team!

After our short holiday in the beautiful Austrian Salzkammergut district with its many lakes and mountains, I was inspired to create something rural and typical Alpine...

Of course the roaring stag is still missing in this picture.....and some good yodeling too. 

I have taken steps images so you can follow me along while I paint my little Alpine landscape (maybe some of you can name the mountain I picked as my model). To see these and the finished project simply click HERE and get taken to the Calico Craft Parts blog. 

Hope to see you over there!

Hugs and have a good start into the week!

Claudia

xxx