Thank You for the Tin Man Kind Comments!

Thank you so much everybody for the kind comments on the Tin Man!

I mentioned I had been very unsure of how to tackle his face. Well, I was surfing tonight and I spotted what look like ideal faces if I wanted to do a similar project again - Yes, I know, always wise after the event! It is these Sarah Lawrence charms from the Fruit Pixie, either the Oval Face or the Moon Face. Might have to get some!

The Tin Man Has a Heart!

A few weeks ago, one of my US forum friends was using an American set of stamps with a Wizard of Oz theme and it set me thinking what wonderful imagery the story has. I thought it would be a romantic idea for Valentine's Day to make a Tin Man, the thought behind it being that even he has a heart, and if you can find it, it is a precious thing.

I was away until the end of last week so I couldn't do anything to put my ideas into action, but they really started to take hold, so I had to make this otherwise the ideas wouldn't go away. The starting point was that I wanted his body to be made out of one of the blank 'Mint Tins' you can get, by Creative Expressions, and I wanted to have layers of watch parts and cogs, with a red beating heart in the middle! Recently I mentioned to my Mum that I love to use old watches and did she have any. The next time I saw her, she had collected 11 complete watches from family members. She doesn't understand what I want them for, but it was lovely that she humoured me!

As a back-drop to my Tin Man, I used a Wizard of Oz film poster inside a reversed canvas. I wanted the edges to look like a Yellow Brick Road, so I painted it yellow and used a stone wall mask, with some Vintage Photo on a tiny piece of foam, so I could just 'outline' the edges. I added some cogs, cut from a Tim die, mainly to cover the rough corners of the cheap canvas.

You can see the brick work here - used a stone wall mask

For the little tin, I flattened out square silver brads and glued them down the front like a placket, with rivet buttons. I made a shrink plastic heart and coloured it red, then a shrink plastic stop watch, and adhered these and added a little piece of ball chain. Inside, I did one layer of cogs and watch parts at a time, waiting for the Glossy Accents to dry overnight, and then added another shriink plastic red heart amongst them.

His working parts on show! I put the cogs and watch pieces in, in stages, leaving each layer of Glossy Accents to dry overnight. His neck says 'Stainless Steel' and is part of a watch clasp. I added a silver ribbon bow tie!

I had a lot of self-doubt about the face as I wanted it to be right. I had the idea that the Tin Man looked a bit 'simple' (Col said I should look in a mirror to get it right!), so I made the face out of clay and added some extra for the nose and poked my little finger nail into the clay at the edge of his mouth to give an upturned look. Once it was baked I painted it silver, added googly eyes, coloured the mouth red, and added a silver bow for a bow tie. The funnel was such a saga! I searched high and low in the house as I thought I had a metal perfume funnel somewhere. Eventually I found this Estee Lauder one, but I wanted a silver one. I did an extensive and fruitless search on e bay, and also tried Boots, Superdrug, etc. This was probably the most time consuming and problematic part of the project. In the end I decided on the copper one I had found in the first place. Colin said, 'but isn't it an expensive perfume one?'. Well, that wasn't going to stop me! I thought the funnel was important to the overall look, especially if the face wasn't quite right. I wanted smoke coming out of it but Col thought that was overkill. I positioned his head where the O of Oz is on the poster, to form an O.

Head made  from Fimo and painted silver, added a red mouth and googly eyes!

I wanted the arms to be from a lady's metal watch strap, and legs from a man's one, each divided in half. The feet are the two clasp pieces, and the hands are the buckle end of a lady's leather watch strap. He only has one finger sadly, but that is enough to hold his axe, which was fashioned from a roasting tin and a coffee stirrer! Colin had the idea of cutting some semi-circular disks from the rest of the roasting tin to link the arms and legs to the body, in a suit of armour sort of way, and this made such a difference in pulling it together.

Axe fashioned from roasting tin and coffee stirrer. Heart pocket watch from shrink plastic, with a bit of Glossy Accents and some chain.

He had a heart hidden away in there all the time!

An angled view

The final canvas, with cogs at the corners

I hope you have enjoyed this bit of fun, and my metaphor for St Valentine's Day. It was fitting that Col helped me so much with this project, as he helps me with everything in life. I hope that, even if you have a Tin Man, you have found his precious heart!

Postscript - I am entering this for the Simon Says Stamp 'Anything but a card' challenge, and also Dezina World, and the Stamp Man Hearts Challenge. I am new to joining in Challenges but Jack suggested I join Theme Thursday's Challenge which is Crazy!

Happy Valentine's Day! A Card for Col

This is the card I have made for Col for Valentine's Day today:-

I used a piece of red heart tape across the middle of a white A6 card blank in a landscape orientation, and then added various different kinds of hearts, at different heights. There is a shrink plastic one saying 'To the One I love', and art moulds made up in friendly plastic, together with some wooden hearts and heart gems and padded hearts. The one third from the left is a Tim charm made into a mould with Siligum, then made up in clay with a dusting of mica powder. I added a bit of dangling chain to grunge it up a bit. It is really a bit girly for Col overall, but he wouldn't want to have an un-girly wife, would he?!

And a sneak peek ........

What could this be? 

 I am posting this today as a sneak peek, for the sole reason that it has a Valentine theme, but it isn't finished yet! So I am wondering if you know what it is going to be? If you can't guess, I might post a clue!

Another Charm Piece

When I was making the piece for Gingersnaps Charms challenge, I made this one as well. I wanted to try out using tissue tape to cover one of these little Crafty Individuals containers. I love the designs of tissue tape and the idea behind it, and the range of uses, but I get frustrated with it as it sticks when you don't want it to, but not when you do. It was fairly quick though, to cover the whole thing, and I then blended on a little Fired Brick as you need a strong colour on tissue tape as it comes out quite muted, and then sealed all the edges with watered down PVA.




I decorated the sections as before, adding some little children and love themed charms. The butterfly was made by stamping a butterfly onto book text twice then adhering to a piece of laminate left from laminating a stamp image sheet. When it was dry I cut them both out and layered them together. I filled each of the sections with glossy accents and left to dry overnight.

The back, showing the tissue tape more clearly

Charming - Gingersnaps Charms Challenge

Today's challenge on Gingersnaps is to use charms in your creation. The charm at the top is an Art Mould, made up in gold friendly plastic.

I used the Baroque Sizzix die to cut two pieces of mountboard and two pieces of Vintage Shabby paper to give strength to the hanging and so I could sandwich the dangling charms in place, and neatly finish off the back. I used a selection of charming Art Journey children stamps, some of which I borrowed from Alison when she was here last week (thanks Alison!). I used some of the words on the background, then the images for the inside of the container, which was from Crafty Individuals.

I finished it off with some german scrap, again from Crafty Individuals, and an ABC charm.

The baby themed charms are hanging from a clothing tag, sandwiched between the layers of mountboard

A close up showing the Crown mould

Gingersnaps Challenge - Kings and Queens

Over on Gingersnaps today they are starting a challenge, featuring Kings and Queens in your artwork.

I thought it would be fun to depict the Queen Bee as my entry. I used a mask from Creative Expressions on the card blank to represent honeycomb, put it through the Cuttlebug, then inked it up with Distress Inks to highlight the embossing. I cut a Baroque shape from mountboard and inked this up, and stamped it with the frame and the word Queen from a Pink Paislee set. There are three sizes of bee so I used the largest to depict the Queen Bee and highlighted her body by using Deko Ice in Amber. I used the small bee all over, including some secondary stamping. I wanted the sense of bees crawling over the honeycomb. I also inked through some sequin waste.

The crown is a Tim Holtz charm which I pressed into some moulding silicone to make a mould, then made it up with clay and gold mica powder. I finished it off with a few adhesive gems.

Birthday Card for My Renaissance Man!

This is a card I have made for my lovely Col's birthday today:-

The stamps are from a gorgeous Katzelkraft da Vinci set which my dear friend Pauline gave me for Christmas, apart from the Mona Lisa which is a Tim Holtz one. I used both da Vinci and Calligraphy papers from Joanna Sheen, and then made the Mona Lisa and the round plaques with shrink plastic.

Leonardo, Vitruvian Man, and one of his drawings, on shrink

Mona Lisa on shrink plastic