The Four Sided Face by Lesley

Hello everyone. 

This week I've been playing with clay, and in particular face moulds. A few of the faces were not quite perfect, but I didn't want to waste them...….

The base is a plain artist trading cube, which I drilled a hole in for the stick. This was painted black and patterned tissue paper applied over the top. Various ink splats all over!

I added 4 of the steampunk snowflakes around the cube, covering them with green metallic wax.

I attached the head to the end of the stick using a bit more clay. 

I used the small tags on rusty wire and wrote on them and twisted them around the stick.

Thanks for reading

L.x

Ingredients used

Artist trading cube

Sheet of MDF tags, classic

Steampunk Snowflake Corner

Sunshine in January - Clarice Cliff Inspired Tag by Julie Ann

Hello Everyone! At this point in the Winter, I'm ready for some spring-time colour! And here is my Calico Tag doll, Clarice who has joined us for tea with a bouquet of spring crocuses as a gift.

 I often imagine how dazzling and exciting the Art Deco ceramics of Clarice Cliff must have seemed when they first blossomed on the china shop shelves in the 1920s and 1930s. Even though her first hand-painted crocuses first appeared in 1928 her art deco flowers, geometric shapes and country cottages still seemed really fresh and hopeful to me when I first saw them back in the 1970s. And it's always been my dream to have a tiny piece of her work.

I'm sorry to say that the mug in this image isn't real Clarice Cliff, but an interpretation of her work given to me as a house-warming gift from a friend about 20 years ago. In the absence of any real Clarice pottery in my kitchen I decided to have a go at creating one of her sunny landscapes to bring some colour into my home in the form of a domestic goddess art doll.

What a great surface Calico MDF Craft Parts are to work on! I decided to create a spring-time bouquet by layering a smaller sized crocus over the larger size. Alternatively you might like to create an Art Deco doll of your own using one of the new Art Deco embellishments from Calico Craft Parts here.

After applying a coat of Gesso to a dome topped Calico large tag, I used a graphite pencil to lightly sketch in a Clarice style design based on research into her images.

It was then fun and rather relaxing to start to 'block' in with bright Clarice style colours in Acrylic chalk finish crafting paints. As the sections dried, I used a fine black, brush style graphic pen to add that Art Deco look and to make the colours pop.

I wanted my doll to have the look of a traditional country woman and this Calico plain bauble left over from my Christmas stash reminded me of a 'cottage loaf' style hair-do. My country woman has lived a long time among the hills and valleys in her simple cottage but she has gathered natural wisdom with her grey hairs.

To create the face, I used water-colour blocks over an Acrylic base and then added detail with fine, black pen. I added these additional holes to secure the arms from a large Art Doll. It's easy to punch holes from the MDF using a single hole punch and I chose white brads to blend with my design.

With the pose - able doll arms you can position the crocuses wherever you please to create different effects.I love how the petal shapes of the Calico crocuses complement the sweeping lines of the landscape behind.

Finally, here is Clarice hanging up in her new home in my kitchen.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. I hope that crocuses will soon be showing their faces in your garden and that until then you'll perhaps be inspired to create a project with some Calico spring flowers yourself. There are lots of lovely new Art Deco pieces available to choose from too. Happy Creating and may the sun shine wherever you are.

Calico Craft Parts used in this Project
Plain Bauble MDF Wood Shape Style 2
MDF Tag Shape - Round Top (200 mm x 100 mm)
Standard Jointed Art Doll Style 2
Crocus - MDF Floral Wood Shape in Small and Medium

Winteralbum with Tips and Tricks by Kerstin

Welcome!

The time was right to make a new handmade minialbum in size 15 x 15 cm.
In keeping with the season again in a winter theme.

You will also see on the next pictures,
 that I often like to disassemble the craft parts into several pieces.
Sometimes they accidentally break too, but even then they are not useless, 
because they can be put together very well...also to form new elements
 or to be used on smaller projects, such as on cards or ATCs.
 
For example, new pointers were created from the snowflake elements, 
which also remind me of clock hands.

I like to set special accents as highlights
 in combination with some other embellishments.

Calico craft parts used

Holly leaf branch

Believe in the Magic ..

Deco Snowflakes Corner

Sheet of Mini snowflakes 1

Snowflake ornament

Ivy leaf garland Style 2

Winter deer scene Style 1

I love the mixture of paper and fabric leftovers. 

Here I used some denim strips, canvas and a pom pom ribbon 

which looks like some soft snowballs.

 

Believe in the Magic ..
Here I removed the "..of Christmas" part and added some leaves from
Ivy leaf garland Style 2 instead.

I often use only a white embossing powder for the wooden shapes, 

I especially like this textured one because it looks like freshly fallen snow.

I used the mini snowflakes as a photo holder.
You only need to attach a small snowflake with a brad,
then you can fix a photo underneath.

some details

only one piece from the Snowflake ornament

here I used a Snow Writer from DecoArt as dimensional white
paint directly on the photo,
 because I simply can't do without 3D effects :-)

and  I only used the lower section from the Winter deer scene Style 1 

edited with clear Crackle Glaze and Snow Tex from DecoArt

You will find the upper part of this wood shape on the next album pages, which I will present in February.

Happy weekend creative friends!

Best wishes from Kerstin xx

Gentle Wishes Card by Jennie

Hello and welcome!

Jennie here with you today and I thought I would share a quick "wishes" card using some of the smaller Calico Craft Parts pieces and some simple techniques.

I took a piece of cardstock 4" x 4" and layered it onto a slightly larger piece of craft card using my sewing machine (which was out and not buried under a huge stash of knitting wool!). I then layered this onto a 6" x 6" card before adding any of the embellishments.

I have only dabbed white acrylic paint on to the key, tag and butterfly - I like the MDF brown showing through here and there. I have edged each piece with a gold pen for definition.

I love these little tags, they work so well on smaller projects and I have a little pack of small sentiment stamps which I know will fit on them. It is always handy to have some non-definitive cards that can be used for birthdays, thankyou's or just because.

Add in a couple of small flowers and a bit of ribbon ....... card finished!

The card is quite robust and although it will incur the larger post fee at least it should survive!

Thank you for joining me today and I look forward to being back at the beginning of next month with a new project.

Jennie x

Live The Dream

Calico Craft Parts used:

Heart Key (Large)

Sheet of Mini Tags (Classic)

Sheet of Mini Butterflies (Style 1)

A Sleigh Ride in the Snow... by Claudia

...is definitely one of...

...to enjoy during the coldest time of the year, isn't it?

I had my last sleigh ride about one year ago and it was even more fun as I enjoyed it together with my son and husband and my dog girlie Bluna in a real winter wonder land!

We will be spending this year's skiing holiday over there again and I am already looking forward to another sleigh ride and some winter walks in the beautiful snow covered forests! I tried to capture a bit of winter magic on my tag and just fell in love with the gorgeous vintage wood shape of the three children having fun on their sleigh and ice skates!

Calico Craft Parts used:

- MDF Tag Shape - Classic (second largest size)

- Children on Sled Silhouette - MDF Wood Shape

- Sheet of Mini MDF Christmas Wood Shapes - Snowflakes 1

- Sheet of Mini MDF Christmas Wood Shapes - Snowflakes 3

- Word Elements

I created a textured base layer on the MDF tag by applying DecoArt media white Modeling Paste through a snowflakes stencil.

Then I placed the wood shapes on the still wet Modeling Paste - so no extra glue was needed to fix the word band, the snowflakes and the children on their sleigh to the tag.

Once everything had dried I snipped off the excess parts of the snowflakes (using a large pair of household scissors) and then dry brushed everything with DecoArt premium Titanium White acrylic paint.

Final touches were added with DecoArt Cosmic Blue and Silver Spark Metallic Lustres that I simply applied using my fingertips.

The Titanium White left overs on my palette were used up by creating little sprinkled on "snowflakes" with a splatter brush.

I found that the tag needed a bit of a visual edge so I blended the tag's edges with walnut stain Distress Crayon.

A ribbon and snowflake charm finished off the tag. 

The Metallic Lustres beautifully highlighted the stencilled on and glued on snowflakes and added that bit of snowy sparkle to my tag.

Once more the finished tag:

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx