What's on My Workdesk Wednesday 275? Configurations box

Hello Fellow Desker.  I am late to the party today cos it is a holiday here in South Africa and I have had a lie in!

On my desk you can see the black sheet of paper that I sometimes use as a backdrop for shooting photos for my blog and the configurations box (how I made it is here)  I made as an entry to the CC3 challenge on Linda's Blog.

You can see my keys and phone right where I left them when I came in last night from teaching my evening class...

Time to tidy away and get crafting for the rest of the day!

Effect Powders Challenge 11 on pg 52 of CC3

Over at Linda's place called L3, she is running the Compendium of Curiosities 3 Challenge where by she chooses a technique on a page and we get to give it a go and enter her challenge!

There is an awesome prize up for grabs for the project chosen by the Curiosity Crew (who supply oodles of inspiration each challenge) sponsored by Tim and Mario and every alternate challenge is sponsored by  Inspiration Emporium (as in this weeks challenge cos it is an odd number) or The Funky Junky (on the even challenges) for the lucky draw prize!

I have been quietly busy on this configurations box on and off for a week now, knowing that I wanted to use this Effect powders technique on it in two places at least and then inspiration hit today with a bang...

I wanted this to be about our overseas trip to Europe in 1998.  I was inspired by the Eiffel Tower on the round chipboard sticker which I covered in Rock candy Crackle paint.

 I cannot remember who this stamp set is made by any more, I really think that manufactures should put their name on the plastic somewhere like Stampers Anonymous and Tim does...

 I stamped the Eiffel Tower onto mount board, cut it out and did the effect as per Page 52 using Black soot and Brushed corduroy distress powders to get the look of rust.

 Then to add extra dimension, I stamped over it in Jet black Archival ink.

   I also used the effect powders on some chipboard stickers which I layered (the eye chart and a postcard) from the same sticker set and turned them into a mini book cover where I will transfer some of the diary entries I wrote during our time in Paris as well as having some of my films scanned and photos printed to go in the little album which hangs on the side of the box using a G45 hook and an idea-ology mini clip.

 This is the mini album as it hangs on the side of the box

 I used Glossy accents on the feet of the tower to stand it up in its box in front of the map of the UK and France which I had used inside that box.

 I had fun with the film strip as I recently read somewhere that if you bend it and heat it, it will hold its shape when it cools and so I tried it out to make the "loop de loop" of my plane and it made gluing it to the top so much easier cos it did not fight me like it usually does without the heating process...for the life of me, I cannot remember where I read this neat little tip, if I do, I will gladly give the blogger her due recognition, but for now it escapes me!

I also used the film strip to portray all the photos I took (36 rolls of 36 exp) in a 6 week trip round the UK, France and Italy...those were the days before digital...imagine how many photos I would take now if I did the same trip?

 Here you can see that the box can still come apart and (below) how I put the two hearts backing paper onto 4 layers of foam tape to bring it forward a bit because these boxes are so deep.

 I leave you with a final close up of the Effect Powders used above and below.  This has been a fun project to work on as it took me an a lovely trip down memory lane.

September tag of Tim's 12 tags of 2014

Well, with 10 days to go before Tim does his next tag, I have managed to get mine together!

I don't seem to have any light colours to do this technique with, so I played around a bit to see what would happen using the colours I have in my stash.  I used stonewashed, sunshine yellow and citrus.

I do have some of Tim's remnant rub offs, but opted for some old real Letraset from days gone by...oh the things we hoard from our student days...they are so old, they did not rub down well, but looks good as a background here.

I opted for gears instead of butterflies which kind of reminds me of a song I used to sing a lot and this is the chorus:

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind, like the circles that you find in 
The windmills of your mind!

My first try was a complete wash out...but would have been good to die cut the butterflies if I had the die as the colour took over and there was no resist at all...so then I tried again and it was better, only I was left with a lot of the alcohol blending solution on my stencil and tried using it to make a print and guess what?  It WORKED perfectly! Though I decided not to use it for this tag, I will use it as a background for something else which can be seen below.

It was really great to learn another technique, I will add this to my CC101 and CC103 tag ring of sample techniques for when I am stumped for ideas.

How to cut just the wings of the Dragonfly die

I thought I would post this here as there was a question recently on the private CC101 Facebook page about how to cut just the wings of the die and the special plate required.  I don't have the special plate that Tim sells, so I just tape two of my cutting plates together with a gap between them, place it over the op of the die where I have marked the centre of the dragonfly to be able to line it up and send it through my Vagabond.

I then popped it into its matching embossing folder to emboss the wings and then make the body come to life.  I find I need to catch the paper to the folder in 2 places so it does not move while being embossed and then it stays lined up perfectly.

Above you can see the one on the left is plain and the one on the right has distress inks on it.

Whats on My Workdesk Wednesday 275? Hats!

Well I have been AWOL for a while on a Wednesday.  Life just gets too busy some times and that is what is so nice about this group.  You are not obliged to play along EVERY week.  Just when you can.  Phew. No pressure! Thanks Julia!

I have been busy with a series of hat samples to time myself for an upcoming project of HUGE proportions.  I am not scared of the scale of the project, but the pricing.  Hence the samples to see how long it takes me and how much materials will cost etc.  I am getting there, one hat at a time!

The white one is my current hat in progress, the "fancy" bits and trimmings still need to go on.  The black one balancing precariously on the angle poise lamp is mine and the others are for 3 gents.  If you have time later you can click here to take you to the post where I show step out pics of how I made the brown hat.

Oh My Hat!

Here is hat 2 in a series of 3...I have decided to enter it into Sandee and Amelie's Stemapunk challenge.  The theme this month is stories and there is quite a story behind these hats that I am working on.  I am doing them as samples to see how long they take me as I have been asked to do a commission of a steampunk art installation at a local well known coffee shop.  I have to give them a quote as to how much it is all going to cost and frankly, I know how much I would like to charge...but I have to work out if that is worth all the time that goes into making things like this...so that is the story behind this hat and the one to follow.  I have already done the first one and still need to do the third one!

Get a good cup/glass of something, cos this is a photo heavy post of how I made this top hat!

 I started by painting the felt hat with gesso, when this was dry, I put a layer of gesso through this Stencil which I held in place with painters tape.

Why is it that I always land up working in a tiny space?  I did clean up the chaos after I took this photo! I needed elbow room!  Once I had let the gesso dry, I added some cogs cut from foamcore and some from cardstock, covered with sticky backed foil.

Below are the photos of the hat in its gesso stage.

 Then I added some distress paint and waited for it to dry.  I could not heatgun this as the foamcore melts...this tested my patience a tad...

 Once the base paint was dry, I set about adding various shades of brown and some metallic paints in the dark brown and copper.  The final touch was adding the shadows in black beneath each item on the hat.

I added some of Tim's idea-ology line to the front.

I used the same stencil and added some Coffee Archival ink through it so there was some continuity around the hat.

Now to decide how I am going to do the final hat in the series...maybe a bit of a girly version?

Steampunk top hat

I am busy with samples of Steampunk at the moment...

Here is my latest creation using sticky backed foil and idea-ology embellishments as well as some habby shop finds...

 I popped the small cogs onto the pres studs to give them dimension on the top!