Gingersnap Creations Blogspot Challenge - Wax

This week's challenge starting today on Gingersnaps is Wax. I would like to thank my lovely, very dear friend, Jack, who showed me how to do candles a few years ago. It is such a nice technique to have up your sleeve and fairly quick but effective. If you are still making gifts for people or want a table centrepiece for Christmas Dinner, I would really recommend them.

I would also recommend the homemade pine cones because if you leave them on the cocktail sticks, you can plunge them into anything and they stay put. I quite fancy doing some in dry oasis as a table decoration, maybe with some fake connifer and berries. I got the fake connifer in a big pack for £1 at my local craft shop, Nancyz Crafts, which always seems to sell exactly what I want.

The other pine cones I have been putting on my blog over the last couple of weeks have been left plain, but this time I added fake snow to go with the snowy scenes on the candle. I don't have the Tim Holtz pine cone die but you can easily follow his instructions but without the die. At first I thought, well if he says you can use the die to make roses, how about turning that on its head and using a spiral flower die to make the pine cones! And I had one of those! So I started off using my Marianne Creatables die. I didn't have the Kraft Core but I thought, ok, if you are using dark brown Core-dinations, the core will be a light brown anyway. So I rang Nancy and she had 12 x 12 sheets in French Roast for 50p a sheet, which makes loads of pine cones!



Then I decided I wasn't making life difficult enough for myself so I made some without the die. I had a wavy edge pair of scissors which came free with a craft magazine. I cut a rough circle, then cut a spiral into it, letting it get a bit thicker nearer the centre so that the base of the pine cone would be a bit wider. It wasn't a very deep scallop design so I snipped just one millimetre with a pair of scissors between each scallop so that I could bend the 'petals' out further, like on a pine cone. I cut a nick into the centre the way Tim explains, so that it forms a base. The only other thing I did differently was to colour the cocktail sticks with a brown Pro Marker, which disguises it if any of it shows.

Finally I cut some snowflakes out of roasting tin foil. I used the Tim die for that - I'm not stupid enough to cut those myself!! I plonked them into the candle on memo pins. Everything is now falling off the kitchen cork board!

Another, maybe more conventional way, to do the same candle would be to have small evenly sized pine cones and to stick them into the candle in a continuous circle around the base, like a wreath. I was in the mood to have them jutting out at odd angles though!

I am entering this into The Stamp Man challenge which is to Create an Ornament.

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!

Gingersnaps Crown Challenge - Is she a Queen of the future?

This is my entry for the Gingersnaps challenge which starts today, for you to use Crowns in your artwork. I used this image from Lost Coast Designs and I always think this little girl looks very petulant. I think she might be going through that phase of elbowing her friends out of the way to get to her favourite toys. When they come round to play with the dressing up box she says, 'it's my house, so I get to wear the butterfly wings dress with the crown'! I decided she is a bit of a diva and wants to be Queen when she grows up! The words are from a set by Art Journey (the set with the image of Michelle from the French Resistance as I call her!) and you can use the background stamp in one piece, or cut out individual words as I have done here - I thought the words, 'Girl Today, Queen Tomorrow' went with my story for her!

The crown is from the Tim Holtz charms, made into a mould with Siligum then made up with clay and gold mica powder. The ribbon is coloured with ProMarker and sandwiched between layers of mountboard cut with a Nestie. The inner layer is a piece of home-made background paper cut with the next size down of Nestie.

The dangly bits are a pair of earrings. I got a necklace and earrings for £2 as I wanted the necklace but I don't have pierced earrings so I knew I could use them on a project. The butterfly is an Anita one. I don't use a lot of bought embellishments but I think these can't be beaten, and they are so well priced.

The all-important crown a bit closer up!

Caught in Crystal Tutorial

I have a tutorial on Gingersnap Creations Blogspot today, using Tim Holtz Fragments with the Caught in Crystal technique. Here is a sneak peek of the project I then used it to create:-

I love little trays like this that you can do collages in, and this one was from Elaine at the Quixotic Paperie, who do lots of lovely bits and pieces!