Mixed media Teal Pumpkin Project.

Hi everyone, here is a video I created sharing how I made this fab vintage mixed media Teal pumpkin, if you haven't seen it before the Teal Pumpkin project was created for children who have food allergies and cannot accept candy when trick or treating, a Teal Pumpkin denotes that you have none food gifts. The full tutorial is in the video and here are a couple of pictures of the finished item.

You can see better in these close up pictures the fantastic crackle effect that was created with good quality paint and crackle medium. The foil effect was created using metal flake and glue from the fabulous Amanda at HoneyDoo Crafts.

Thanks so much for visiting! 

I hope you like and subscribe to my channels.

Clare

1st year Silver Smithing School Exam Piece

Hi everyone, while having a route around my blog and sorting out what's missing and what's not I realized that I never posted what I created for my 1st year exam piece in silver smithing school. So here she is, my angel. She was inspired by the angel necklace description from one of my favourite books by Cassandra Clare, The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel.

I have just to do a little bit more polishing (I am better at that now!) and add the garnet chip silver chain I have for it then she is ready to wear.

Thanks for visiting

Clare

New blog post for IndigoBlu, a journal page.

Hi everyone, today over at IndigoBlu I have a journal page to share with you. If you want to know what I used and how I created it please pop on over and let me know what you think.

Thanks for visiting
Clare

Streamathon success

What a wonderful new years eve. Good friends, good company and lots of new people I have never met before. Thanks so much to everyone who came to visit my hour slot, it was great to have you. Since Ustream is changing its policy and videos over a month old will be deleted I have now uploaded my hour show to Youtube.


Enjoy

Clare

Court of Owls Costume Finished

 Hi everyone, I have got an hour to myself so I thought I would do my write up of my Court of Owls costume I made for the comic book convention at the Royal Armouries in Leeds in November.

Beware the Court of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch, behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you in your bed, speak not a whispered word about them, or they'll send The Talon for your head.

The court of Owls are basically (if you didn't check out the above link) the bad guys in DC Comic Universe. They started in the 1800's and that is what I decided to do for my costume and since I love steampunk I decided to steam it up alittle. I wanted to make as much of my own costume as possible so I started with the jewellery. I wanted a statement piece for my neck, I think it turned out pretty awesome if I do say so myself!

I had an awful time tracking down a suitable crinoline until I happened across a UK seller on evilbay, its a minefield of expensive what planet do they think you are on and overseas sellers from china that would take far far too long to arrive. So I ordered this one, its number 10 on the above link. Here it is letting it fluff out from its squashed packaging with Tigeress looking slightly confused by it. She spent ages just walking around it looking for a way in! Too funny!

So the next step was to create the black skirt, I went to a new fabric shop in town called the Fabbardashery. Wonderful shop, super helpful. I came away with a huge amount of fabric in jet black super quality cotton and some clock printed fabric. The black skirt was simple, sewed it up the edge sewed a piece of elastic in the top, stood on a chair and had my mum pin the bottom, hemmed it and done. Then came the bustle, ahhh what fun that was! Having never made a bustle it was quite interesting! My lovely friend Vili came over to give me a hand. We sewed the clock fabric and backed it in black so it looked like a pillowcase. Made a belt with a spare strip of black and worked out how wide the bustle needed to be on my hips. The piece of fabric is 44inch wide so we then gathered it into the small width required and sewed on the belt. We attached it to a chair and started bustle making. It is pretty simple really, get some pins and stab yourself loads while you faff and work out how to make it look good.

Above left we have the bustle tied to a chair while we pinned it, checked it then sewed it in place and above right the bustle done with corset and skirt and crinoline on to check it looked good together.

I literally finished the whole thing the day before so getting up at 6.30am on the Saturday I got dressed and conned my mum into taking me to the train station where we were all meeting to travel together. I didn't wear my corset on the train as I fancied being able to breathe at that time in the morning, I did put it on on the train and got a fair few funny looks by people in the carriage. It was quite hard getting in and out of the car, I felt like I should have been in big fat gypsy weddings. Speaking of weddings, on our way up to the convention from Leeds train station 2 random foreign men congratulated me and Ross (picture below) on our marriage...... so did a few other people...... No we aren't married, my fellah was at a different event in York so missed all the convention fun!

So here most of us are in all our Court glory! A couple were missing from the photo, both the above one and below one were taken at about 9.30 in the morning, and it was COLD! Like my fingerless gloves? looked good with the costume but not very practical!

The final photo below was taken in the bar at about 3pm. Not bad for 3 hours sleep and a hectic day of posing for the camera for more people than I can remember and chatting away about costume making to more people than I can remember too.

It was a totally wonderful convention but I was totally shattered by the end having just days before recovered from 2 weeks of the awful Norovirus. My bustle looks alittle flat in this picture, I had been sat down just before it was taken, I think I only got to sit down for 15mins the whole day! Cant wait for next time and to see what everyone comes up with to go as. We were the only co-ordinated group so we got rather a lot of attention!

Thanks for visiting
Clare

College Catch Up

Hi everyone, just a quick update on how I am doing in Silver Smith School. I have progressed from copper and the ahh it wont cost much if you ruin it scaredy cat approach and gone onto working with hallmarkable 925 Stirling silver. I have successfully made a silver ring shank and attached a hand made bezel ready and sized for a specific gem. I don't know how to set the gem yet so I have to wait until Monday's class.

I still have some cleaning and sanding to do, I have to be extremely careful with the hand made bezel top as it is very thin fine silver. My gem is semi transparent so the inside of the bezel needs to be immaculately clean and sparkly, which at the moment it is not.

The ring fits me perfectly and is really comfy but I still need to shape the edges alittle bit. I cant wait for it to be finished and polished up to a jewellery shop shine!

Thanks for visiting!

Clare

First Hammered Copper Ring

Hi everyone, today I want to share with you my very first ring completed in Silversmith College. I made it on Monday from a piece of scrap copper that was all twisted and mangled up, pretty proud of my achievement really. I finally got the whole soldering with a blow torch down too and worked out what I have been doing wrong with the help of the wonderful tutor Mark.

I cut, filed and shaped the scrap piece into a ring form, it is alittle uneven at one side but hey, for a first go I aint complaining! I sanded and cleaned and sanded and cleaned some more, then after 3 failed attempts to solder nailed it on the 4th go!

After the soldering came the whacking, my favourite part to add in the hammered texture and to make the piece large enough to fit on my finger, it was quite small. Then came more sanding and cleaning and it sat in a pickle bath for 10mins too. The final part was to get it on the polisher which is quite a beast of a machine and at one point took it from my hand and flung it across the room! Luckily it didn't hit anyone on its flying lesson but it did get a little miss shaped from being slammed into a wall then the ceiling and then the floor. After the final reshape and a wash with fairy liquid to get any polishing residue off, here we have it. My first hand made completely hammered copper ring. Cant wait to get making some more. My etching fluid has now arrived so I will be having a play with that this weekend too! Cant wait!

Thanks for visiting
Clare

Steam Costume For Though Bubble - The Necklace

Hi everyone, as quite a few people know I am a bit of a nerd so it will come as no surprise this year that me and my fellow nerds are going to the comic book convention in Leeds called Thought Bubble. This year however is different from previous years, we are going dressed up, specifically as The Court of Owls.

For my costume I am steampunking it up a bit, just coz! So my first piece is a bought piece and it is a corset. I really wanted to make it myself but I value my back so without proper guidance from an expert I erred on the side of caution and bought one. I am not showing it yet until the final reveal of the whole piece all together.

Today however I am showing my necklace. Made from scratch with my own hands and 2 beading needles. I am extremely pleased with the outcome and it fits me perfectly!

I am not a beader so I have no idea what the stitch is called, I just know I had a pattern, I altered that pattern and made the base of my choker. I received some small cogs and gears from a wonderful friend in the USA and added them to the bottom. Pretty simple really but I love it!

Here it is laid out flat on my table.

Here is the fine detail of the piece.

And here is me wearing it about 30 seconds after I made it, in my PJ's, not my costume!

The next piece I am working on is my skirt and these beauties, if I get the time, I hope I do my head is whirring with things I want to do to these goggles, firstly to seal them as they came like this and are what seems to be permanently tacky in feel.

Thanks for visiting!

Clare

Week 1 and 2 of Silversmithing College

So I have done my first 2 weeks of Silversmith College and I am having a brilliant time! I am totally engrossed in the process so far and my little head is about to explode with ideas and possibilities!

Week 1 was basics health and safety and we got to have a little play on some copper sheeting to test out making marks and whacking stuff! Good fun! Here is a couple of the pieces I did. I should note that none of my pieces are finished in any way as they are needed for evidence for the qualification at the end of the course.

The pieces have photographed really well and look nice and clean and shiny but trust me when I say they are not clean or polished at all, they are pretty grimy, they haven't even seen a pickle bath to degrease them.

The second week we went onto annealing, pickling, polishing and basic shaping with tools, like half round pliers and using mandrels.

 

It is amazing what you can do with a desk sized polisher!

I might turn this final polished and edged piece into a pendant later, after I have my qualification and no longer need it for evidence of what I have done.

We are on a break now for 3 weeks as the teacher is on holiday so I have time to gather up a toolbox and have a play at home. Next time we are moving onto stirling silver and learning torch soldering and making a finished basic ring. Cant wait! Gem stone setting n stuff like that is to follow.

Enjoy your weekend
Clare

 

Anna Dabrowska aka Finnabair Workshop

My oh my what a wonderful weekend I had! Totally shattered afterwards but exhilarated at the same time. I headed off to Snazzy's in Swindon on Friday and went via The Stamp Attic too, but unfortunately Wendy was called away, but I shopped anyway muhahaha! Sad to not have met her though, next time! It was quite a nice drive down took it easy and saw a spectacular accident on the motorway at Watford Gap services where I stopped for a lovely coffee, it was a Costa so always good. The hotel was lovely, a premier inn, comfy bed but I was so excited I didn't sleep a wink. All the attendees that were in the same hotel all met up in the bar and had dinner together which was lovely! I got to meet the lovely Astrid who I have known for years and years and never met in person before which was fabulous, but I forgot to get a photo together! Doh! I was sat the whole weekend with some lovely ladies that were mostly local, and very funny! Also I forgot to get a picture with them!

So the workshop with Anna, we did 4 projects in total. A 12x12 layout, a canvas, journal book covers and 3 journal pages. I only finished 1 journal page so I will show the other 2 once I have finished them. The first project was the 12X12 layout and completed on the Saturday morning! Anna is a wonderful teacher and pushes you just enough to get everything done within the time time scale. I never would have imagined I could do this stuff in the time allotted so I quite pleased myself.

The second project on Saturday afternoon was a canvas layout. Again I didn't think I would complete it in the short amount of time we had but again I was pleasantly surprised!

Then we all headed back to the hotel and had a lovely evening together chatting, drinking and eating! I managed to sleep alittle Saturday night but woke up lots during the night worried that I was going to sleep in and miss the class LOL! Sunday morning brought us one HUGE class kit that was quite intimidating at first but we all got stuck into the journal covers, which are fab, I am hunting for some more of these!

The morning saw us completing the covers and the afternoon was taken up by the journal pages. I only finished 1 journal page so I am not showing the others yet.

I had a totally amazing weekend and am so glad, even though it was pricey that I decided to do it. Anna is an amazing teacher, you get a small fortune in the class kit, unlike some other workshops I have been on, this one was truly worth the money! I would recommend it heartily to everyone.

Thanks for visiting

Clare

WOYWW - returning to my mixed media roots

Happy WOYWW everyone!! Its Wednesday again, still snowing, actually big fluffy sticking flakes as I write this to add to the already saturated ground. We still have quite alot of snow here and more on top is not looking like a fun filled week for me.

So enough of snow woe's here is what's on my desk. My lovely friend Sandra has set a load of challenges for a group of us and this is something I am doing for one of them. I have neglected my mixed media roots for quite some time now and I am really missing it so I have decided to get stuck back in and make time for the thing I enjoy the most.

Before

First I image transferred an image onto one of the MDF man's cog's

After

Then I painted it and blended it all in.

After

I love how it turned out so much that I am leaving it as it is. I might add it onto another project at a later date but for now this is how she is staying.

Thanks for visiting.

Recent Art Journalling

I haven't shown any art journalling for a while so thought I would do a catch up.

My first page came about after a huge disappointment with someone that I considered a great influence to me and someone who I looked up to. I am no longer enchanted by this person and am glad to see the real side of them, instead of the fake one that has been projected for years.

My next page is proof that journalling while drunk is so not a good idea! It represents the fake end of the world when they Mayan calendar ended and all the nut jobs thought the world was going to end. No offence to nut jobs intended.

My next page is my summary to my 2012 journal your year and what I learned from the year, pretty self explanatory I think. The image is from Joe Cartoon hand drawn into my journal.

My final page is for the Creativity Venture and the completion of my personal challenge.

Thanks for Looking!

New dabblings

Created a few more pieces over the weekend and used the Paperartsy Treasure gold again, love this stuff, I must get more colours!

First off I used a mould I have had for quite a while now

And then I created a picture frame for one of my Grandparents wedding photos.

Hope you all had a productive weekend too!