Steampunk Ornament Swap

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog today. 

I wanted to tell you about a little swap that I did with some friends from Virginia. We have been swapping ornaments off and on for about four years now and since we are all into steampunk and we decided to do a steampunk Christmas ornament swap this year. 

Steampunk is always so fun and creating something in this theme isn't the easiest thing but it sure was fun to do.

This was the ornament I made

I used a old vintage key as my butterfly body and then just added some other elements. I added a vintage looking snowflake to the back of each and a vintage button to one wing

I can't tell you how fun this was to create.

Here are the ornaments that my friends sent to me:

From my friend Chris - the details on this is amazing

and from my friend Deanna - this one is so elegant and beautiful

This was such a fun swap to do and I'm glad I took part. 

Thanks for coming by and enjoy your day. 

Merry Christmas!!

Give Away Watch Part Necklace - My etsy Shop

Hello all, as you know I started an etsy shop a couple of weeks ago and I have just re-stocked it. I'm so excited about my new adventure that I really want to do a give-a-way as a way of promoting my shop. 

All you need to do is:

1. share my post on your blog letting people know I'm doing a give away 

2. Share this post on your Facebook page
My post regarding this is HERE

3.  Leave a comment here on this blog post

4. Come by my shop and look around and if you feel so inclined, favorite it too :)

CraftsbyClaudine

Let me know you've done these things and

That's it, one lucky winner will win this beautiful one of a kind necklace

This will be a random drawing and the deadline for this will be Tuesday December 1st and I will announce here on my blog and on my Facebook page who the lucky winner is. 

Thanks for the support and I hope that you and your friends enjoy checking out the shop, these necklaces are great, one of a kind gifts for friends and family. I'm making more necklaces this weekend so the shop will have even more. 

Thanks for helping me out everyone!! Good luck in the give away.

Artist Trading Block - TIME

I'm so excited to share with you today an Artist Trading Block that I have created. As some of you may know my favorite style of media is Steampunk and I did an ATB awhile back with steampunk in mind
(Warning, this post is photo heavy)

Well, I wanted to do another steampunk-ish/Time block but this time I really wanted it to be clear or see through
You can find Eileen Hull's Artist Trading Block along with all her dies HERE

I decided to use some of the thick clear packaging that I have saved from misc things I've bought
(yes, I save it all LOL)

I cut my ATB out of this packaging material and then embossed it with an embossing folder

In order to emboss each section of the ATB I had to put the embossing folder into the machine sideways and this way I can emboss each section without overlapping

For the middle section of the ATB I had to use a shim so that the middle would emboss but the other two sides would not
This was the result, each section of my ATB is embossed and there is no overlapping or wonky clocks

Next I simply colored my embossed sections with alcohol inks

For the Time plate to open I simply used paper on the back and created a piece that would swing open
(I created this plate with a Ten Second Studio texture plate, metal tape and black paint)

This piece of paper was adhered to the back of my plate and then onto my ATB front (I used red line tape for this)

I then used some grungeboard letters and painted those black with acrylic paint to create my "Time" word for the top of my ATB. I also used redline tape on the back to adhere those

For my flowers, I used Wendy Vecchi's set of clearly for art flowers and stamped this with various Tim Holtz stamps using archival ink

Once dry, I used various colors of alcohol ink to color them and heated them up to shape them

Here are several photos of my finished Artist Trading Block

The first photos are without the light

I figured that these photos would eventually be changed to a photo of Derek and I and our two girls, I just didn't have time to find the perfect photos and print them in the sepia tone

 Now the Photos with the light source under the ATB

I'm going to have to get one of those light stand for my ATB, the kind that turns. 

I hope you liked my creation today and please make sure to check out Eileen's Art With Heart June Challenge, this month it's all about "Summer Celebrations" you could win a wonderful Sizzix prize pack.

Also, hop on over to The Artists On The Block Blog for some more wonderful design team inspiration, there is so much wonderful talent on this design team!!

Thanks for coming by!!

Artist Trading Blocks - Steampunk Style

So I have noticed that there are several artists out there doing some steampunk type Artist Trading Blocks (a Sizzix Die by Eileen Hull) and that has really inspired me to do one myself, I mean, I love Artist Trading Blocks or ATBs and I love Steampunk!! It's a match made in craft heaven!!

If you go to the artist trading block site you can see several ideas and get tons of inspiration there...

Artists On The Block

and make sure to check out Amy Bowerman's Site Plucking Daisies - She is doing a Eileen Hull Inspiration Team Call

For this ATB, I wanted to make something really special for my daughter for her 16th birthday. So this Artist Trading Block is going to be her 3D card from me... This one is going to be open and have flowers and butterflies coming out... I hope she likes it

This is going to be a photo heavy post - sorry 

I did this really cool riveting technique that I learned from the fabulous Tim Holtz. I took a class of his a little over a year ago in Maryland and this technique was awesome. I have loved it ever since...

I added a Soda Pop tab to the lid of the box to act as a opener

In this photo you can see some of the riveting and also the top

I colored them both with alcohol inks

I also added some Tim Holtz metal numbers to the lid and colored those as well

Here are some photos of my finished Artist Trading Block

I added watch pieces that a friend of mine sent to me, I used some metal mesh for the center of some of the flowers, I used gear dies (by Tim Holtz) and watch parts, old buttons, this was so fun to put together

Click the photos to enlarge so you can see the details better

I found this new challenge site called A Vintage Journey and the theme is "Tim Holtz" so I decided to link this one up for the challenge.

Thanks again for coming by, I hope you enjoyed my Steampunk ATB.

Stay warm and don't forget to set your clocks back this weekend!!! Ha!!

Altered Playing Card Steampunk Tag

Live The Life You've Imagined!

This is one of my favorite sayings and it's on a few Tim Holtz Stamps, I decided this was the saying that I wanted to go with for this tag.

For the project today, I entering the following challenges:

SanDee & Amelia's Steampunk Challenge - The challenge over there is "Altered Playing Cards", this is my first time playing with them and I am really having fun with it. I will have to play more often with SanDee and Amelia

Fun With ATCs - Texture is the theme there and I created texture with the embossed metal and my playing card is ATC size.

To start with this tag I sanded a little bit onto my playing card to give it some tooth and prep it for the Distress Paint.

I then went over the entire card with some peeled paint - Distress Paint, I wanted to card to show through and it worked perfectly. I also went around the edges of the card with black soot distress ink.

For my tag I dabbed several colors of Distress paint onto my craft sheet and spritzed with water and then ran my tag through.

I also stamped with Archival ink and a Tim Holtz word stamp

I used more paint dabbers in several colors for my cardboard pieces that I used. These turned out so cool, I just love how the colors run together.

I used metal tape and several alcohol inks and a Tim Holtz clockworks embossing folder to create my piece of metal. I also went over the top after it had been embossed with Black Soot distress ink.

In order to create a pocket (so that the playing card can be pulled out) I only tore off the paper backing of the tape in the areas I wanted to stick to the tag and left the rest of the brown paper.

I used a piece of card stock with writing on it and colored it with distress inks. I stamped my sentiment with Archival black ink. The sentiment is from the Tim Holtz stamp set called "Odds and Ends"

Lastly I used apiece of Tim's tape measure ribbon and stained it with a combo of distress paints and alcohol inks to colorize it. I'm sorry, forgot to photograph that part.

I added some other elements and lots of Tim's Findings

This is how it all came together... (notice the measuring tape on the right side here)

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial for today, please feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have questions. I really try to answer all question and usually reply to all comments.