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



Monday, 6 January 2020

Something New - Guesting at the SimonSaysStamp Monday Challenge





Hi, servus and welcome to the first of four special posts and projects I am sharing this January as their Spotlight Guest Designer after being spotlighted back in November with my "Under the Light of a Full Moon" project! Shortly afterwards I was invited by lovely Lols to guest this January and share four projects throughout the month linked to their Monday Challenges.





"Something New"


is this week's challenge theme and by playing along you get the chance to win their fab 



to spend at their online store! How cool is that!?


As Christkind has brought me the awesome "Alpine" Tim Holtz dies set I had wished for I immediately knew I had to have and use it for my first guest project and create a little typical Austrian alpine themed card, showing a typical Salzburg style Villa surrounded by the Alps of course and the typical landscape with a mix of forests, mountains, fields and meadows with lots of fruit trees. Because as an Austrian gjrl I grew up spending all my summer-, my skiing-, many autumn- and sometimes even Easter-holidays in the Alpine regions around Salzburg - which was the home of the Trapp singer family whose story was made famous by the musical drama movie "The Sound of Music".




And of course there also had to be some yodelling!!!! 

It's an "all Tim Holtz - make" again and what is also "something new" for me is that I've made a card (as I am not really a good card maker and therefor don't do a lot of these) and that I have discovered that using Tim's Distress Oxide Ink pads to colour my die cuts and create my background with has turned card making into something really pleasurable for me!!! Thank you, Tim! ;)

Maybe you have already guessed which of his dies sets I have used to create my Salzburg style villa and the sun...



...right! It is one of the houses from the adorable "Ghost Town" dies set!

I just had to "invent" the typical Salzkammergut style shutters that on traditional houses and villas are always painted in a very special and typical green. So I die cut the house three times using the first die cut as my main house, the second to cut the window frames with shutters from and the third to cut out a roof from. I used the second die cut to draw a door, the window frames and shutters using a fine tip marker and then fussy cut along the drawn lines using my tiny detail cutting scissors.


Et voilá!


I also kept the left over from one of the house die cuts to roughly trace its inside on a piece of black card stock to cut into shape and glue behind the house.


The traditional Salzburg villas and houses are painted in a warm yellow, so I used Distress Oxide Ink fossilized amber to colour the house front, fired brick to colour the roof and peeled paint for the door, window frames and shutters. I applied the Oxide Inks with the round Ranger mini ink blending tool.


Next I die cut the alps and coloured the mountain base using peeled paint Distress Oxide Ink with traces of Distress Ink gathered twigs on top.


The die cuts' edges were all blended using gathered twigs Distress Ink as well.


The snow covered mountain tops were blended using Distress Ink pumice stone.


The die cuts that form the shadier areas were given two additional layers of pumice stone on top.


Time to glue everything together! I made sure the shutters didn't get glued on as well so I could fold them a little for more dimension.


The next step was to build the landscape with the pine and fruit trees. I used my little Sizzix Sidekick directly on my glass media mat and die cut the three trees from the Alpine set and the skeleton tree from the Ghost Town set using white card stock.


Distress Oxide Ink peeled paint and Distress Ink gathered twigs were once more used to colour these.


I also layered some Distress Oxide Ink broken china on top to get a different green as I had on my mountains.


The skeleton tree was done using Distress Ink gathered twigs.


I smudged some of the broken china Oxide Ink onto my glass mat and spritzed it with a little water. Then I used a detail brush and the ink on my mat to paint the window panes.


I needed a sun to shine bright on my card and searched for a dies set to cut that from...and stumbled across my also new Tim Holtz "Snowy Stars" dies set. It has four stars in it and by layering these I could create a beautiful sun for my blue alpine region sky.


I used fossilized amber Oxide Ink again to colour the die cuts and then stacked three of the largest and one of each of the smaller stars.


The background was quickly done using Distress Oxide Ink peeled paint and Distress Ink gathered twigs again. I used a sheet of paper to mask the sky area while I blended the lower section with the inks using the blending tool again.


Next I masked the lower area and did the sky using Distress Oxide Ink broken china. This time I added some sprinkles of water to create some "cloud-like" patterns.


Using Tim's Alphanumeric Classic Upper and Alphanumeric Classic Lower dies sets I die cut my yodler from some left over linen card stock. It didn't matter it was blue as the opaque Distress Oxide Inks have good coverage so I could turn the blue letters into red ones easily using fired brick Distress Oxide Ink on them.


Finally time to assemble my card!!!! I like to use a fine detail brush and diluted tacky glue from my palette on the glass media mat to glue tiny bits into place.

Done!



I really love how my card turned out! It definitely has the feel of a typical warm spring or autumn day somewhere in the Salzburg or Salzkammergut region...a clear blue sky with just hints of clouds, a hot sun, ...


...some snow still or already covering the peaks of the higher mountains,...


...the lovely yellow villas and houses with their green shutters...


 ...and forest, green meadows and fruit trees everywhere you look.

               



                                              eeeee-
                                deeeeeeee!!!!
                           Yodel-lay-



Honestly, I do not really yodel - but I remember we sang some songs at primary school and also later when I was in a large women's choir, that have a kind of yodelling in them...it was rather the holler-ay-dee-ree-ay-holller-ay-dee-ree stuff, but it wasn't sung in real yodelling technique (which is really special and not my favourite). But it is a "legal" kind of yodelling as well over here and there are some really beautiful Austrian folklore songs that have this kind of slow "dyo-dyo-ee-ree" sung parts in them that are prayer yodlers and these are really beautiful.


I hope you liked my truly Alpine card (and the little yodelling lesson) and I hope to see you again at the start of the next Monday Challenge over at SimonSaysStamp Monday Challenges!






Check out the fabulous makes of the design team, get inspired and have fun playing along! 

Hugs and happy crafting! 
Claudia
xxx






A Special Monday

Hi, servus and once more "Happy New Year and all the Best for 2020" (just in case you have missed my post for SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges' January challenge on 1st January ;)

Today is not only an "every other Monday Monday" to present my Calico Craft Parts project but if you check back later today you will also see me guesting at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenges with a project created especially for this week's Monday challenge.

If you want to find out what I've made using these two beautiful hinge wood shapes, a few DecoArt paints and products and some cardboard packaging left overs, simply click HERE.



And I dare also share a little sneak peek to lure you into returning to my blog in the afternoon (well, at least it will be afternoon already over here in Europe)...



But for starters I would like to invite you over to the Calico Craft Parts blog of course. Hope to see you there!

Hugs and happy Monday crafting!
Claudia
xxx


Wednesday, 1 January 2020

Le Roi Frédéric - Steampunk ATC for SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges

Hi, servus and welcome to this year's first design team post for SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges! May the new year bring you loads of good health, joy and success in (not just) your creative endeavours!

Over at SASPC we're kicking off the new year with another

"Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial" 

challenge - so you are free to create away as long as you make sure you follow our few rules and as there is a touch of steampunk or industrial style to your makes.

I decided to start small this year and do an ATC - one of my favourite formats to work on.





Meet "le roi Frédéric"! Doesn't he just look like a truly honourable man? His crown is made of a kind of book page feathers - I just love it!




It's a cut out from one of my two Spellbinders "Media Mixage" Ephemera paper pads designed by Susan Lenart Kazmer. Together with the gorgeous MDF steampunk ATC frame from Calico Craft Parts, Seth Apter's awesome "Chunky Rust" Baked Texture embossing powder, my beloved black Stabilo All aquarellable pencil and DecoArt media fluid acrylics I had a lot of fun piecing it all together.

Especially the Chunky Rust looks great on top of "Burnt Orange" Americana acrylic paint (which I used as an adhesive for the embossing powder). Later I dabbed on some DecoArt media Diarylide Yellow fluid acrylic paint here and there and also inked the outer edges of the ATC frame with a piece of blending foam and black archival stamping ink.




I added diluted DecoArt media Carbon Black Antiquing Cream on top of the heat set Baked Texture to darken the look. Finishing touches were done using media fluid acrylics Prussian Blue Hue and Diarylide Yellow.

The shading in the background around Frédéric was done using the black Stabilo All aquarellable pencil and a soft wet detail brush. Using the same method I also shaded lightly around the glued on ephemeras' edges for more depth.



As glue I used DecoArt Americana "Antique" Decou-Page that already has a light brown-ish tint to it - so it slightly tones down the collage pieces while you're gluing them in place. 

Our challenge is - as always - open until the end of January and - thanks to our wonderful sponsors DecoArt and boozybear who have generously decided to be with us for another year we are able to once more offer two fabulous prize packages that go to two randomly chosen players among all proper entries. For more information and to check out my wonderful team's makes simply click HERE to get taken to our challenge blog post. I hope to see you over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges soon! 




Hugs and happy 2020 crafting!
Claudia
xxx