Sunday 31 May 2015

Bobbin queen shrine: By Zuzu

 
Hi again.

Well I was very excited to receive this little shrine kit from Helen at Calico Craft Parts in my design team package. unexpected treat. it comes flat packed but was very easy to assemble (in my opinion).


I simply painted this one in a nice soft sage green then stamped on to it. I stuck printed tissue on the back then popped in some bobbins. I made one bobbin into a bobbin queen by adding a china doll head and a wee metal crown. there are three cogs placed on the bobbins too. and that was it. simple as anything but I love it and have lots of ideas for this shrine. I may just take it all apart and start again. maybe something a bit more Mexican and Frida related or day of the dead. lots of colour. I will, of course, share the results if I do it and it works out.



Calico Craft Parts used:

Shrine Kit
Cogs (from mini sheet)

Wednesday 27 May 2015

Artdoll Bird by Lesley

New goodies in the shop peeps! And trust me......they are fabarooni!

Helen sent me a cool shrine kit this month.....as usual, the piece i was working on got abandoned in favour of this cool item! I could have played safe with it......but where's the fun in that?
So, with a pair of metal bird legs and one of the twins dolls......the shrine kit became Artdoll Bird!


Pretty ugly huh?

The shrine was painted with black gesso, and then a layer of crackle glaze over the top. I then glued it together, and rubbed in some rusty looking paint into the cracks. 


The dolls torso was covered in newsprint tissue paper and then painted with various colours to keep it rusty looking. I glued her onto a gessoed cotton reel and wrapped rusty wire around it. She looked a little naked, so i gave her a rusty bolt necklace, and how could i not give her boob tassels? Every art doll deserves boob tassels! 


The head was super fun to do! Again, i painted it black, adding some copper metallic wax to highlight her features. I drilled her eyes out and glued in two small screws and bolts. And then went a tad crazy with a metal scourer for her hair!


Obviously the scourer was silver coloured.......so i painted that as well. Before i glued her head to the box, i heat embossed a wooden cog with rusty embossing powder, then glued that to a cool rusty metal circle i found in a skip the other day. 


I'm completely in love with her hair........needed to stop myself adding more!!

The final thing to do was to give her some legs. This were a royal pain in the butt to secure. The shrine was a tad to heavy for the spindly bird legs......but i love them, so had to use them. They were painted with rust coloured paint and heat embossed. and i added some more cogs to the ankles. I drilled two holes into the base of the box, added some rusty nuts and two more embossed cogs. A few hours later, a lot of glue and swearing.......and she finally stood up!


I think the grief it took to get the legs to stay put was worth it. 


This was the bestest fun to make.......there will definitely be more artdolls being made in my gaff. 
I just need to find where the twins have hidden their dolls. ;)


Thanks for reading.

L.xx

Ingredients used.




Monday 25 May 2015

Butterfly Moments by Alison

Hello all, Alison here, and I've got a springtime creation for you today, full of blossom, blue skies and butterflies.  I'll share the project in more detail over at Words and Pictures soon, but I'll just share the Calico Craft Parts highlights with you today!


Unsurprisingly, I was completely smitten with the new Mini Butterfly Wood Shapes.  There really are some exceptionally lovely ones, with delicate wing shapes, and they come in sheets of various designs, so you get plenty to play with.  But I needed somewhere lovely for them to live...


I created a crackle sky on a  canvas for my butterflies to flutter in, spritzed with inky sprays in soft springtime blues and greens, and with some mini-beads for extra shimmer.


And butterflies need somewhere to perch, so I added some flowers clambering over a trellis.  Some of them have had some painty altering to get them how I wanted them to look.


The butterflies themselves have been treated very simply with some sparkly paint so that they catch the light.


It took a couple of coats as the paint was quite translucent, and I used quite a lot of water, letting the colour puddle to create interesting shapes and shades.


I love how they turned out.  I hope you do too.  I think my favourite is this one who's just alighted for a rest... the legs are unbelievably intricate.


Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you again soon.

Alison xx

Friday 22 May 2015

Call of the sea diorama: by Zuzu

Hi there folks!

It's Zuzu here and its my turn to post a project on the blog.

I have made a diorama. It's pretty much 100% craft parts apart from the box which came free with 4 pairs of socks inside at Christmas.


I painted my box, inside and out then added some bits of stick as platforms on the sides and bottoms to make it easier to layer the craft parts. (you can use that 3D foam sticky tape or pads if you prefer).
I used some decorative flourishes for waves and simply started to layer the different parts on to each other to build up a 3D scene.


Craft Parts used: (click on item for link to shop)


Flourishes (for waves)
Ship
Ships wheel
desert Island (Palm trees)
lighthouse
Mermaids
seahorses
shells
octopus
gull
fancy corners
dolphins

Thursday 21 May 2015

Hold On Tight... by Trish

Hello!

I have phases... and I'm way way past being a teenager, so can't blame my age lol! My current phase is 'draw little people and glue them to everything'!

So..... here is my creation for today!


My dyptich is made from two ATC blanks. These are amazing, there are so many different types and shapes to choose from! I chose the classic arch..


The blanks come as two separate pieces....


(v small pic there pinched from the Calico site!!)

This means you can easily join two arches together, and still have the edge detail intact. I used a sheet of canvas, cut to the shape of the two base pieces, with a small rectangle shape joining the two together . The canvas was then glued across the two base pieces, then the edges glued over the top. Weird shot showing the 'sandwich'..


A small strip of canvas was glued to the back to make the hinge part more secure...


Then the dyptich is then ready to decorate....



I created a simple background by smearing on lime, white and turquoise paint. Once dry, I added white splats with ultra thick embossing powder, and white painted dots around the edges using the tip of a pencil.

I then drew and coloured my figure, cut her out and glued her down...


I added word stickers to the other side of the dyptich, along with red painted hearts..


As a finishing touch, I drew around the edges with a watercolour pencil, and blurred the lines with a waterbrush.

Love these blanks lots, and will be looking for more unusual ways of using them shortly!

Have a great day!

Trish xxxx

Sunday 17 May 2015

Gifts for friends by Astrid

Hi all, Astrid here with my latest project.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with Louise, our DT leader and our mutual friend Carol. We had a wonderful day out together and I decided to make them each a little gift:


So what are these you may wonder, and you will see that in a minute, but first I thought I'd show you which lovely Craft Parts I used:



Both of these are ATC wood blanks, which look like this when you first get them (there are many more styles, check them out)!

For my project today I decided to use them as toppers for the two little folders I made that can hold sticky notes.

I started by making the folders with the help of tags, inks and stamps:


The tag I used is about 8.5" long and I scored it at 4" and 4.5" to make a kind of book shape when folded. This was the first one I did.


This is the ATC blank, I love the postage stamp style of it and altered it with crackle paste, stamps and inks until it looked like this.


And here is the finished front of the folder. I also used one of the gorgeous Corner Wood Shapes and one of the little hearts to cover the hole in the tag.


Here is the inside with the sticky note pad stuck down. Such a shame they don't do these in more muted colours...


The word Fly was stamped on another one of the little wood shapes: The Notched Rectangle. These are great for titles etc.


As I like the shape of the ATC blank so much I did not use the frame for the front, but instead used part of it to decorate the right side of my folder.

The second one was done in a very similar way, just in a different style.



The out - and inside of the folder above and below the ATC blank adhered to the front. The photo is one of my hubby's relatives:


On this one I covered the hole on the tag with one of the Flourish Wood-shapes, again there are lots of different ones to choose from.


Here finally is the inside, decorated still with a couple of the Wooden Cogs Shapes.

Well, that's it for now and I will leave you with a photo taken during our lovely day out:


Louise is on the right, Carol on the left and in the middle Louise's Hubby in his Highlander outfit.

Thanks for visiting like always and have a creative week!!!

Wednesday 13 May 2015

Blue Lagoon by Lesley

I had so much fun creating my piece this week. Had absolutely no idea what i was making, or where i was going with it. 


I started out with a chunky piece of wood (pinched from work!) Around the edges of the circle was given a thick coat of crackle paste. And the top was covered with more crackle paste, sand texture paste and glass bead gel. When it was dry, i covered it with spray inks and shimmery waxes. I chopped up a curly vine, painted the bits and glued them to the edges of the wood.




The little metal thingymebob had a base made out of two wooden cogs glued together and painted. I drilled a hole in one of the mini hearts, painted it, gloss gel and micro beads on top. And then hung it from a small piece of chain.



I created 4 ATC's using the same colour palette as the wood. 









I used the rest of the curly vines and another mini heart to decorate the ATC's




Thanks for looking.
L.xx