Roll up, roll up. The circus is in town. By Sara Annau.

Hello again. 

I’m back with my second guest designer project and this time I’m bringing you the colour and fun of the circus, all rolled up into miniature form inside this little shrine kit. 

I absolutely love a good circus theme, vintage circus in particular which means I often buy beautiful scrapbook papers relating to the circus. What better way to use some of those papers than to create a little circus that can sit on a shelf. 

When I received my order from Calico craft parts, it included this lovely elephant which I’ve used to add some interest to the back of the project. I’ve gently highlighted it without going too heavy handed so as to keep the detail of the original laser cut showing. 

This project involved an awful lot of fine detail cutting (fussy cutting). A job I usually find relaxing but it may take my fingers a while to recover from this one lol.

However, I think it was worth it as there are so many fun and interesting little details to look at on the finished project. 

I hope this project has given you some ideas of your own and that you might feel inspired to decorate a little shrine in your favourite theme 

Thank you for looking.

Sara. 

Supply list.

Shrine

Elephant

Step Right Up! - Artist Trading Block - by Claudia

 Hi, servus and thanks for stopping by today! How about sharing a little crafty inspiration to distract ourselves from all the craziness that's happening in the world these days?! 

Have you already seen the new circus themed craft parts in the shop? They're vintage designs and I fell in love with them at first sight. 

I especially love the monkey, but the director is just as fab! 

Calico Craft Parts used: 

- Artist Trading Block Cube Kit - Plain Cube - large 

- The Ringmaster - MDF Wood Shape

- Snarling Tiger - MDF Wood Shape

- Circus Elephant - MDF Wood Shape

- Circus Chimpanzee - MDF Wood Shape

I assembled the artist trading block (which is really easy as all joining points are marked with matching letters so you can't go wrong) and covered the sides with some striped vintage designer paper (from a Tim Holtz paper stash) using matte DecoArt Decou-Page. I also used diluted Decou-Page on top of the paper after I had inked the edges with dark brown archival stamping ink and a piece of blending foam. 

While that was set aside to dry, I dry brushed all the craft parts with "relic" DecoArt Americana Chalky Finish paint, using a flat, soft brush. This way the engraved patterns started to show beautifully. 

Once the cube had dried, I applied DecoArt media white Crackle Paint with a palette knife here and there along the edges and put that on the central heating to speed up the drying and crackling process. 

In the meantime I started colouring the prepared craft parts with various washes of DecoArt media fluid acrylic "Quinacridone Gold" using a detail brush. 

Then I highlighted some areas with DecoArt media fluid acrylic "Titanium White". 

The crackle had turned out just beautifully in the meantime! I added a wash of Quinacridone to that too. 

Afterwards I went in with a wash of Raw Umber DecoArt media fluid acrylic paint to accentuate the crackle and tone down the elephant's skin. 

Using the Tim Holtz "Alphanumeric Shadow Upper" dies set, I die cut my quote and painted the inner parts of the letters with more Quinacridone Gold (using a fine detail brush). 

Finally I added sprinkles of Raw Umber, Quinacridone Gold and diluted DecoArt "Gold Rush" Metallic Lustre to the showing sides of my block, before I glued everything in place using matte Decou-Page. To help the characters on the top of my block stand, I used snippets from left overs of MDF Add On Sheets. 

I also used the Metallic Lustre to customize the little star stickers I added to some spots. 

Every circus needs its stars and a bit of bling, doesn't it?!

Some close ups: 

I hope you've enjoyed the little visit to the circus! 

Stay safe

and as always

hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia 

xxx

Cirque Du.... Spooks

This is one of those projects that started out as one thing, but due to some mishaps, it became something else. 

This time it was because I failed to test my little battery operated tea light before forging ahead. 

Firstly my little Halloween circus tent was going to have the orange glow of a tea light popping up through a carefully planned hole right next the the cauldron to emulate the warm fiery glow.  

Without the light, it was simply a bit too dark and dull. So plans B. I put in the china doll clown head. 

This is a Roughly done photo edit of what I had originally planned... Lol. 

Craft parts used:

Circus tent

witches

Skeleton 

Halloween corner ornament.