A Dive into the Subconscious - Tag - by Claudia

Servus and thanks so much for stopping by! 

I have taken quite a long break from regularly crafting - mainly caused by moving and adapting to having two studios in two different parts of Austria (which has the benefit of getting to enjoy the beautiful city of Vienna AND the wonderful nature of Austria's beautiful Salzkammergut district). I found that the "new life" also changed a lot of habits - one of these being my former crafting routine. I re-discovered a lot of stamps that I had bought in my early crafting times, when I had just started to dive into the world of rubber stamps of all kinds and special stamping inks, embossing powders and a lot of other cool techniques and crafty miracles. 

So one of these stamp sets was what sparked the idea for this tag and for a new (or maybe old...but in any way different) approach to using the many Craft Parts that I still have in my stash. I also had to find new ways to get back to enjoying a bit of crafting besides developing new routines with the two spots I am now living in - so I am now trying to focus more on experimenting, doing smaller projects or simply not finishing a larger one in one go as I used to. This tag emanated from some very spontaneous and joyful play with what I had at hand mostly...some really cool Calico Craft Parts, a re-discovered stamp set and beautiful and inspiring book pages and collage paper scraps. 

I picked the Craft Parts that spoke to me most and that I felt corresponded with the stamped focal image in a way that the tag could evoke stories in the beholders' heads...stories from the Subconscious. I definitely followed my subconscious when creating this tag. ;)

Calico Craft Parts used:

- MDF Tag Shape - Rounded Rectangle (150x75mm)

- Crucian Carp MDF Fish Wood Shape (small)

- Word Elements - Art & Journaling

- Mini Star Wreath (medium size)

- Star Shape - Mini MDF Wood Plaques

- Sheet of Mini MDF Hardware Wood Shapes

- Sheet of Mini MDF Label Holders

I started with tearing and gluing some book pages to the MDF tag. For that I used matte DecoArt Decou-Page as it dries fast and does not wrinkle the paper too much. I primed all the MDF Wood Shapes I wanted to use with a thin almost dry-brushed on layer of DecoArt Beige Chalky Gesso. Then I painted the fish with a very thin wash of DecoArt media fluid acrylic Prussian Blue Hue, the single star with Titanium White media fluid acrylic and the star wreath and label holder with DecoArt Americana True Red acrylic paint. 

You can also see the fussy cut stamped image of a young woman and pair of wings in the picture, as well as a golden German Dresden Scrap crown that was a perfect fit! 

I had decided to have my stamped fairy queen sit on a Word Element and have a fish swimming in the ocean underneath (=her subconscious). I found this old black and white gel plate print and tore off a scrap to use it as my "deep sea" background.

The bright gold of the crown got toned down using DecoArt media Carbon Black Antiquing Cream and DecoArt media fluid acrylic Metallic Gold was used to paint the two screw heads and the jump ring that I used for the fairy queen's necklace.

I like how the random black and white patterns of the ocean background repeat the irregular black and white patterns from the fairy queen's face and sleeve! Using more Prussian Blue Hue I painted some ocean waves on top - mainly to repeat the blue from the carp. More blue was added by using the thin washi tape above the Word Element band. 

 

My original idea was to use the whole bright red star wreath around my queen's head, but that covered up too much of the crown and other lovely detail, so I had the idea to cut the wreath in two and only use one half on top of the tag...for me these are all the shining brilliant ideas emanating from the fairy queen's thoughts...or maybe her reign is under more than just one good star...

Final touches were added using a white Sharpie pen (the tiny dots border around the tag's edges). The hand painted ocean waves got a white outline too and the fairy queen's cheeks needed a bit of pale red - done! 

I am sure the tag will tell you a different story than the (not too precise) one I had in mind when creating it - or at least different in some aspects. But that was what I wanted - to give you some visual "hints" that will let your minds run free and evoke your own stories. I hope you'll enjoy them (and the tag of course)! ;)

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

 

Zombie Fright Night - by Claudia

Hi, servus, boo, how do you do and thanks for stopping by today! 

Who could resist some deliciously wicked Halloween crafting? Definitely not me - so here comes my "Zombie Fright Night" - Halloween Hanger Diorama...or whatever you'd like to call it.

These guys are definitely up to no good! Obviously they're just on their way out of the cemetery to haunt the hapless neighbourhood. 

Golly! Who knows how many innocent victims will be crossing their path tonight?!

And even more of these grizzly creatures seem to arise from their graves! Beware!!!!

And where does all that ghastly blood on the tombstones come from?! I am not sure I really want to know...

What YOU might want to know though is which Calico Craft Parts I have used to create my little diorama of horrors and how I did it...

Of course the hanger kit by itself is already really cool - but I wanted to add a little more storytelling and liveliness to it by combining it with some of the other fabulous Calico Halloween Craft Parts (and believe me - there are oodles to choose from!!!)

Calico Craft Parts used: 

- Zombie Graveyard - MDF Halloween Hanger Kit

- Double Rail Rustic Log Fence Panel (medium size)

- Flying Bat Colony - MDF Wood Shapes

- Zombie Arms & Boots - MDF Add On Sheet

- Word Elements - Horror & Halloween 

- Zombie - MDF Halloween Wood Word

But for now don't let yourself be followed by Zombies - rather follow me through the how-to! ;)

These are all the Calico Craft Parts I played with - the hanger kit consists of the three Zombies (which form one single piece), the oval shaped platform, two small tombstones and two large crosses as well as two Zombie boots. 

The slots in the platform can be used for other parts though - if you want to add any like I did with the Zombie arms. I played around for a while - the picture below shows only one of the possible combos I liked - moving larger parts (like the giant cross) to the background after I decided to add the beautiful log fence to the scenery. 

I also chose to add a little bat and separate it from its colony, the Zombie Wood Word and the Fright Night Word Element but to not use the second large cross (I am sure this will find a new home in a different cool Halloween project). 

I started with priming both sides of all the Craft Parts except the backs of the log fence and the Zombie wood word with DecoArt premium Carbon Black acrylic paint. Once that had dried, I fetched my largest stipple brush and - while mixing black and white (DecoArt premium Titanium White) on the go on my palette - created a base layer of various stippled on shades of grey. This formed a kind of rotten looking texture to go over with some paint washes and/or transparent acrylic paints later in the painting process! 

While the stippled on paint was still wet, I went in here and there with a mix of DecoArt Americana Festive Green and some grey (which gave a lovely ghoulish green) from my palette using a smaller stipple brush. 

The log fence and Zombie boot were dry brushed though - otherwise I would have lost the beautiful engraved patterns on these pieces. 

For the fence I mixed some of the grey on the palette with DecoArt Raw Umber Student Acrylic paint. I made sure to have several shades of the mix while dry brushing! 

Once the paint had dried I started adding more colours - using them mostly as transparent washes (=heavily diluted) on top of the stippled on base (so it would still show through) and only some of the brighter pale green and light grey mixes as opaque highlights. Colours used were DecoArt Americana Celery Green, Deep Burgundy, Lavender, Milk Chocolate and a lot of mixes that evolved during the painting process.

The left over diluted Burgundy on my palette got sprinkled onto the cross and the tombstones using a heavily loaded detail brush flicking the paint on randomly.

So far, so good. 

To have some of the green and orange tones pop more, I went in with another layer of paint - this time DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints Green Gold and Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide. I added these as washes to some of the Zombies' clothes and the Zombie Wood Word. 

Finally I glued everything in place (using the slots in the platform to put the Zombie hands in) - except for the log fence - and then added model railway grass to the platform. I used DecoArt matte Decou-Page for that - my all-time go-to glue and sealant. The log fence got glued in place on top of the added grass - I used the right tombstone to have the fence kind of lean against it and added some Decou-Page there as well as to the two outer fence posts and that did the job perfectly. All I had to do was leave everything alone until the glue had hardened. 

Time to test if the hanger kit was still in balance (as I had added pieces that weren't originally part of the kit) - nope! Of course it wasn't. To fix this, I added two pieces of collected driftwood in the needed spots at the back of the scenery. 

This picture also shows why I hadn't painted the backs of the log fence and the Zombie word - this way the black silhouette of the Zombie group was still fully visible - and what a fabulous silhouette it is!!!

My zombies were finally ready to get hanged!!! Yay!

I hope you've enjoyed your visit!

Happy Halloween crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Faded Splendour - a Beer Mat and ATC Trio - by Claudia

 Hi, servus and thanks for stopping by! It's been quite some time since I last posted on here, so I am glad to be back with a new project today! I hope you'll like it!

As autumn is already in the air over here (starts earlier each year), I am starting into my favourite season of the year - being mainly inspired by beauty in decay and the signs of fading splendour all around. So I have created a little trio of insect beauties and I like to think of them as having been found on the ground (already dead) instead of hunted down alive to be put in a frame...

I have finally set up the new studio with (almost) all the stuff I prefer to use in my mixed media art (well, something is always missing because it is in the wrong studio and I guess that will stay this way for a while longer...lol) and got to play with the lovely set of insects dies, some almost forgotten embossing enamel and lots of Distress inks of all kinds as well as some of my favourite DecoArt products. 

I knew I wanted to make a trio, but at first I thought I would use the Domed Top Triptych MDF Kit, 

...then, later in the process, while playing around with a lot of other Calico Craft Parts, decided to combine a Square Beer Mat and two Plain ATC Wood Blanks to form a trio with a wider centre piece. 

As you can see I also tried out different smaller Calico Craft Parts to add to my framed beauties on their panels. In the end I picked two label holders from the Sheet of Mini MDF Label Holders Wood Shapes and one of the cool Steampunk-Vintage Word Elements. You can guess that these are some of my most often used favourite Calico Craft Parts - they look so cool on so many projects! 

The little frames were die cut and then given a coat of DecoArt Raw Umber Student Acrylic paint. Once that had dried, I scraped on some white DecoArt media Crackle Paint here and there and let that air dry. 

Then I toned down the white from the Crackle Paint by adding embossing glaze. I also added a chunky copper emossing enamel here and there for a bit of bling and extra texture. 

The insects parts were die cut from papers I had made during some other session, using loads of Distress Inks of all kinds. 

To give the insects' legs and some of their wings a glossy look and a bit of dimension, I added slightly diluted DecoArt Triple Thick with the very tip of a detail brush and let that air dry (which is so much less fiddly than using black embossing powder I've found). The eyes were done using pure Triple Thick, which domes quite nicely. 

Some of the crumpled wings were additionally inked with brown archival stamping ink (using a piece of blending foam) to make the crinkles more visible. 

To create the background on the beer mat and ATC blanks I used DecoArt dècoupage paper and matte Decou-Page, which I evenly spread on the blanks before I pressed these to the backside of the paper. Once the Decou-Page had dried, I sanded off any excess of paper. The edges of the panels were inked with brown archival ink too. 

For some additional splendour I sprinkled diluted DecoArt Vintage Brass Extreme Sheen paint using a splatter brush on the finished insects. 

Then I used a detail brush to paint the domed eyes with Vintage Brass as well. 

Finally the frames, insects, stamped number labels, Word Element and label holders got fixed to their spots using sticky foam dots. 

I am still looking for a matching wooden tray to fix the trio to, so for now I have arranged the panels on a large wooden tray so you get the idea of the finished project. 

Depending on how the light hits the insects, the gold sprinkles on the insects and copper embossing on the frames become visible. I love the thought of this being sunlight, shining through the forest's thicket, kissing the fading beauties on the ground so they can be found by some watchful wanderer...

See you soon! 

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx