Yay!!! Its craft o'clock

Well I don't know where the month of April went.  Its time for a new Claritystamp challenge already.  Thanks to all of you who took part in last months challenge using the fabulous wee folk.

I was so excited when I knew that this the theme for this month was "clocks" and knew straightaway that I wanted to produce a piece of artwork for my blog title.  However, what I was actually going to do was another story altogether....

Ingredients
For the background
A4 and A3 canvas boards
Vintage book pages
Mod Podge
Paperartsy Fresco paints
Distress inks
Clockwork/cogs stencil
Chinese lanterns stencil
Curly wurly stencil
Harlequin stencil
Sunburst stencil
Dotty wave stencil
Grunge paste
Embossing powder (I used a Frantage one)
Letterbox stamp kit
Fine wire

For the embellishments
Madeleine stencil
Fob watch stamps
Pretty petals stamp kit
Funky foliage leaf stamp
Medium lamp post stamp
Sizzix love cogs die
Versamark ink pad
Distress embossing powder
Detail gold embossing powder
Grungepaper
Gelli card
More Paperartsy Fresco paints
Spectrum Noir pencils
Small metal cogs

Glass accents
Ball chain
Glossy Accents

Be warned;  this post could turn out to be longer than "War and Peace."  It certainly took me a long time to finish it!

First job was to cover the A4 canvas board with squares cut from vintage book pages.

 

Next job, add some colour by 'walking' the brayer around the board using the Paperartsy paints.

 

 

Add some extra colour round the edges with Distress Ink.

 

After spending time figuring out the right mix and layout of the stencils, I dragged grunge paste through each of the stencils in turn, and roughly and unevenly sprinkled on some Frantage embossing powder    This had to dry naturally before I could melt the embossing powder.  Once this was done, I sponged some more ink onto the exposed areas of grunge paste.

 

 

There!  Stage 1 complete.  This was when I went a bit crazy and kept coming up with new ideas for how I wanted the finished project to look.

 

Firstly I roughly painted book pages with Paperartsy paint, allowing some of the print to show through.  Then I stamped and embossed the bunting and letters before cutting out.  These were then threaded on fine wire and glued into position.

 

I cut out cogs from gelli card and embossed some using just detail gold powder (2 coats needed for a nice glossy finish).  The rest, where I wanted a rougher and more textured finish, I used distress powder for an uneven base coat, then a second coat of detail gold powder.

 

 

 Next, I stamped a load of large and small fob watches onto gelli card with archival ink and aged them a bit with distress ink before cutting out.  Glossy accents was added to the large watch faces, real glass accents were added to the small watch faces as they fitted perfectly.

 

 

After painting some grungepaper, I pulled grunge paste through the Madeleine stencil.  Once dry, I coloured her with spectrum noir pencils.

 

 

Then I had a messy session making some background papers ready for the flowers.  I tried out a few colour mixes with my Paperartsy paints;  splodging and spritzing them on my craft sheet and picking up the paint with some gelli card.  This was a technique we used at Maria Simms' last workshop;  thanks Maria!  These were then used to stamp the petals for the flowers which were assembled using the fob watches for the centres.

 

 

 

Now it was time to assemble it all together.  You can see some of the details below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally I decided to give Madeleine a necklace, using the rest of the fob watches and the lamp post stamp (I did trim a couple of bits off when cutting these out!), and added a scrap of ball chain to finish.

 

 

Phew!  Are you still there?  If you've made it this far, I hope you like the finished piece and that it will give you a bit of inspiration for your own project.  There's some more great work and ideas from my design teamies.  Looking forward to seeing all your ideas too.  Till next time.  Xxx