Industrial Chic Christmas Tree Baubles

Hi everyone, today I have a project for you that I have had on my mind for a few weeks now, I have been wanting to make a very industrial chic christmas tree and wasnt sure how to do it, I think I have cracked it with this project, the first of a series of Christmas tree decorations. I hope you enjoy!

Enjoy!
Clare

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

New Video - Intersting Times

I participated late last year in a circle tunnel book swap. This is one of the pages I created in someone else's journal. Her theme was Terry Pratchett.



I hope you enjoy my project and leave me a comment!

Thanks for visiting
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

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

Merry Christmas...... ahem

If you were watching Create and Craft this morning you will have seen why my desk has been kept in secret! The fabulous Kay of IndigoBlu kicked off the Christmas crafting event with some gorgeous stamps! If you missed it here is a few images of my samples! Create & Craft was selling out fast so if you fancy any of the stamps I think they have them all in stock, but don't quote me on that one! Did you know they post to anywhere in the world? Well you do now!

Large Canvas

What an amazing day! Thursday was a large abstract canvas class at Art From the Heart. This is what I completed in the class, I wont go into details as it would take a week for me to write out the 30+ steps required to complete it. The canvas is 24inch by 24inch and was so much fun to do! Really happy with my colour choice.

Recycling an Art Journal

A long long time ago, before I even knew what art journalling was I saw the most amazing hand tooled leather journal on I think Etsy but I'm not certain, could have been somewhere similar. I wont lie it was quite expensive but I wanted it oh so badly! They were made to order and took around 6 weeks to make, when I finally got the dispatched notice I was so excited, and it arrived, the smell oh my wonderful. The texture of the tooled leather against the smooth leather was divine, but the paper inside was a HUGE let down. You know when you were a kid at school and you had to use the toilette and it had paper that could only be described as kinda gray looking, felt like cardboard and painful to use, well it was like that. I have it pictured below but you cant really tell from that picture how bad it really is. When we went to York for the day with friends I came across a paper shop and impulse bought this most wonderful book of Indian rag paper made by Khadi paper's, I didn't really like the book it was a bit large and cumbersome so I hadn't used it yet. While moving rooms around (I am swapping bedroom and craft room) I came across the leather journal and figured since it was bound with waxed leather cord and signatures I could rip out the old paper and make new out of Khadi paper.

So after an hour or so taking the Khadi book apart and making pages I began to re bind the book, it was pretty easy to do until I had to tie the knot at the back, could have done with a bit longer length of cord but I managed in the end with a bit of fiddling and faffing. The new signatures have allot less paper in them but I only wanted a small journal and only intend on doing single page spreads and not double pages. Cant wait to get started in it but must finish the new craft room first as I cant find anything! Finished book pictures are below.

WOYWW

Its that time again! Where is this week going is what I want to know. So can you tell what it is yet? it is in its ugly stage so you probably cant! You will have to watch this space

I had an accident and lost the picture for this post, many apologies.

Macabre Monday & Tuesday Taggers Challenges

I usually upload Tuesday Taggers entry's on my other blog, Horner's Corner but today I am combining it with the Macabre Monday challenge so I am uploading it here.

So the Tuesday Taggers challenge is to recycle something, so I took this tin that had in it a very tiny amount of Prima flowers (like 10) and a 2inch thick piece of foam at the bottom that was hidden by the flowers so it looked full, yes you could say im abit bitter about that considering the extortionate price of the thing (like 10 quid!!). Anyhow I have been loathed to throw it away so I have decided to recycle it and turn it into a nice tin to hold all my metal charms that are floating in the bottom of a drawer and I can never find when I want them.

So picture above is the before picture, now onto the Macabre Monday part of the challenge, Ode to the Bruise. Which is to use the colours black, purple, yellow and teal, just like a bruise which I have a massive one on my foot from dropping a stone from a dry stone wall on it but thats another story. So here is what I did. Well gesso'd the interior of the tin, let dry, gesso'd again, let dry. Randomly painted with some cheapo paints purple, teal and yellow, let dry. Painted a nice layer of Blonde Moments crackle glaze available at Art from the Heart, let dry. Painted over with not so cheap black paint and it started to crack instantly, I must say I love watching this happen, let it dry. Spray varnished inside, let dry and lastly spray varnished again in case I missed any of it and let it dry, do you see the recurring theme here!! So I got some fabby ribbon from my monthly Crafty Feeling bloom kit and wrapped that around the outside, thats one piece of ribbon it comes half organza half satin and then added the little dude to the top because I still want to see inside, the gems were already on it and they are stuck on really good, maybe that's why the tin was so expensive!!

Hope you like it and if you see a tin of Prima flowers like this, you know what to do.... hide them so no other sucker can buy them and get ripped off too!!