Gingersnaps' Challenge - Cogs, Gears and Watch Pieces - well, Watch Pieces at least

Do you have the concept of The Man Drawer in your household? Well, the reason for my posing this photo with these tools is that Colin recently said, 'I'm just popping out. The Watchmaker's Tool Kit I wanted is now in stock'. Who knew? I questioned him about the purpose of this kit and he said it was to fix my prescription sunglasses, which he kindly did, but I was still suspicious. Well, he has now admitted that the tools came with a cute little compartmented box, with minute screws in ever decreasing sizes. He can now add it to the drawer of un-named items of ironmongery, and keys that don't actually fit anything, and will feel very secure in the knowledge that there is no job too small.

The box itself was an excuse to use this great Watchmaker's Stamp from Crafty Individuals CI 279, and I added the Watchmaker, one of the steampunk men from the Tim Holtz set which Alison kindly let me stamp up. You may remember Mum collecting eleven watches from around the house when I told her I was making a tin man, so I have garnished the box with some of the pieces. The tool-kit is great for getting the back off watches and pushing the springs out of the metal bracelets.

The giant key I have had for ages as it was out of a grungeboard elements set and I thought it was too huge to be useful. I decided my Watchmaker would have a huge key to wind up all the Grandfather clocks in his shop. It was also an excuse to stamp the Crafty Individuals' stamp onto this as well, so that if it is lost they have his address to return it to.

This dull photo is the box after I had painted it but before I decorated it, the reason being that I have had this cloudy blue colour in my head for ages, but found it difficult to achieve. I kept veering off into turquoise with everything I tried to make! So I thought I would photograph it at this stage in case it then went horribly wrong. It took about five different products to get the shade right and I have already forgotten what they were, so I can't tell you.

When the lovely Alison was here last week she also let me stamp up her butterfly plate. The text which goes with it actually says Clockmaker, Jewellers, and Silversmith on there, so I thought this went with my theme, although we seem to have shifted from Edinburgh to Paris suddenly. But it seemed just the right size to give me a neat bottom! The 'feet' are domino word tiles coloured with Pro Markers so my watchmaker is now a clever, serious, finicky, genius!

I decided I wanted to use one of the little Tim glass vials for him to keep his tiny watch springs in. I painted it with Paper Artsy paint which works brilliantly on glass, then cut off a piece of tissue tape with said Horlogerie, but I could only fit Horloge on it. I added some actual watch hands to one of the clock faces, and then another clock face bottom left. Top right is a little charm I added some chain too, to make it look like a pocket watch, and top left is an art mould clock face with a Tim game spinner.

Inside the box is a mirror for his lady customers to try on jewellery items, and it has lots of tiny compartments to keep tiny screws and springs in.

Over on Gingersnaps you can see the other items to help launch the challenge - they are wonderful and so varied. Hope you will join in!