da Vinci Inspired Inventor and Mad scientist Steampunk egg

Hello there and welcome to my latest (and last for now) Giant Egg.

This time I was inspired by Stamperia's rice paper with the da Vinci images.

My other inspiration was leaded glass windows and set about creating them using Christmas tree baubles that come in a diamond shape.

Here are the photos of the finished egg, to see how I created it, you will have to scroll down past them...

I bought the cool science bottels and the diamond shaped windows from my local craft and scrapbook shop called Mit Liebe (Home Made with love) shop here in Berlin.  They have the most amazing selection of Stamperia products, from the stamps and papers to the stencils and moulds as well as the acrylic sprays.

I traced round the windows and cut them out with a scalple blade.

Once I was happy with the fit of the windows, I embossed some sticky backed foil with gears and adhered it to the egg.  

To fill the rest of the egg, I cut random shaped pieces of foil, adhered them to the egg and drew "stitch" marks with a ballpoint pen before going over it with black paint and rubbing off the excess...and while I had black on the brush... I painted the inside of the egg too...

I love da Vinci's wings and drew one on an A4 page, scanned it into Corel Draw, traced it, then imported it into Tinkercad to create the 3D file to be able to print them out.

Here they are after they had been sprayed with gold spray paint... the Mouse is for scale! LOL!

Using some old dress pattern paper, I glued the wings onto it with gel medium.  This helps to strenthen the paper on the wings.  To get a nice neat edge, I used sand paper to remove the excess paper.  This works much better than trying to cut with scissors.

Vitruvian man was the recipient of the wings... I believe he can fly...

Meanwhile inside the egg... the mad alchemist is busy trying to get an elixer into a bottle...

I put lights inside the bottle with little tiny stars... Like the scientist has captured some of the cosmos!

To finish off the outside of the egg, I used polyurethane to create this moulded piece and cut it out with scissors, to hide the cut edges, I used hot glue and added drips for good measure.

I used Treasure Brass to highlight the details of the mould and the hot glue pattern.

I did the same technique for this piece.

3D Hot Air Balloon by Snip Art

 I had a 3D Hot air balloon mdf piece from Snip Art on my desk for a while...  I was contemplating how I would cover it so that I could add more chipboard items to it...

 Then it "hit me"  cover it with string!  So one evening, I sat meditatively with my gel medium and a ball (and a bit) of string and slowly but surely wound it round the balloon...

 Till the whole thing was covered and then let it dry over night...

 I then added the chipboards which I sprayed with water on both sides to allow them to mold to the form of the balloon without cracking or bending at sharp angles...

 My go to colour scheme is spray painting everything black and then using the metallic waxes over the top... this is an easy way to get an effective outcome.,.  However... Olga challenged me to use white as my base and some colour... so I patiently gessoed the whole thing white and then added some pink and blue sprays... followed by some metallic paint which I thought made it look messy...

 So I turned it upside down and put it in a dish and spray painted it black from the botom which left a highlight of the previous colours when you view it from above...

 to make the chipboards stand out a bit more, I used some Finn opal magic waxes over the top

 This how it is for now... I quite like it...  but truth be told... I preferred it before I painted it.  The natural look was rather nice... but it goes well in my little studio in the pink and black... which the natural beige would not have... such is life!

What's on my Workdesk Wednesday No559? Not much!!!

Hello my fellow Wednesday desker from Julia's place!  Sorry I didn't get round to visiting anyone last week... I had every intention... but life happened....

Here is my desk after a busy week of creating... It lies sort of clear.  At least I can see most of my craft sheet...

The two clear domes are there to be measured as a response to a question from a lady in a group where I posted my latest huge 30cm/12" tall Easter egg (as seen below) and she wanted to know the size of the two domes I had used...  These are the other halves...

To save you a trip to my previous post... here is the view into the egg...

and I finished my clock tht I was working on last week...

So all in all a busy week was had, but now there is nothing to show for it on my desk... except for a few random things that still need to find a home... like the greenery purchased for the egg...

Steampunk Underwater Easter egg with lights inside

 I started this build on Friday...  Its been such a blast.  I purchased this HUGE 30cm / 12" tall egg at a craft expo on Thursday and imediately knew what I was going to do with it... I had molded "Octoman" as I call him from the Stamperia mold and realised that the giant eggs I have been using as bases for the last 3 eggs, would not do him justice.  So, when I saw this giant hollow egg, my brain went into overdrive!

 I have fallen in love with this paper and mold range by Antonis for Stamperia called Mechanical Sea World.

 The pink and blue bits with clear pipes are part of a DIY straw set for kids... I purchased them to use as pipes in my project.

 The molded items, plastic leaves and pipes got a coat of spray paint and were left to air for 24 hours, while they were doing their thing outside... I cut the two port holes in the egg to fit the clear domes and primed the egg with gesso and made texture in it using a crackle stamp.

The rice paper can be torn apart along a wet line drawn with water on a paint brush.  This gives a lovely soft edge which dissapears when it is glued down.

 I used the rice paper to cover the inside of the egg, using soft gel medium as mu glueboth under and over the rice paper.

 The molded things and pipes got layers of acrylic paint sprayed onto them in Lime

 Turquoise and leather

 They look rather nice just with these 3 colours on them.

 The aging cream is not available from Stamperia yet... so I made a plan and used Annie Sloan dark wax to get colour into the grooves.  Then I used Finns Brushed Iron Metallique wax over the top to make the pipes look metallic.

 I did the same with these guys... Above is before I added Turquoise satin Opal magic wax instead of the silver.  and the photo below is after adding the wax.

 The shine is hard to capture in a photo, so here is a video...

 I heated my little fish and bent them to fit the curve of the egg and used hot glue to place them.

 I used a paint brush and added some colour back to my plastic plants (sea weed...)

 Here is my inside all glued in place

 Above is the foil which has been embossed with Tim's folder and below it has been aged with black distress paint.

 I heated and bent my "Octoman" and glued him to the egg.

  I put the cut outs back into the egg so that I could spray without getting the paint on the inside.

 Using the same order, I sprayed Lime

 Then Turquoise

 Then Leather over my whole egg.

 This is the back of the egg where the texture I had created in the gesso is catching the acrylic sprays.

 Here is Ocotoman before ⇑ and after ⇓ his wax rub.

 Then I added some Bronze Age wax by Finn and some Treasure Gold Brass for highlights on his helmet.

 I created rings to go round the port holes by tracing round the domes onto sticky backed foil and embossing and aging them with black soot distress paint.

 The domes were aged with alcohol ink and distress paint.

 Hot glue was used to add the cable tidy stuff round the edge of the domes.

 Treasure Brass was used to highlight the texture of the cable tidy.

 I added the ricepaper sea horse to the left side of the back of the egg.

With the rice paper Octoman on the right side of the back.

 Then for good measure, I added the gears which I molded from the same mold as the seahorse and the Octoman by Stamperia.

 I have put a little LED light inside the egg which I have to open using this latch to switch on and off.

 Here is the egg with its light on so you can see the seahorse in his world of pipes inside.