Steampunk candle stand

I was browsing in a charity shop, when something caught my eye - a rather naff candle stand with some plastic 'crystals' suspended from the top plate.

I thought ... I could steampunk that to within an inch of its life!  It was in the half price bric-a-brac sale at £2.50, a bargain LOL.  It did come with a wax pillar candle, held by a spike in the centre of the top plate.  But I knew I wanted to put an LED candle on the top, so that spike had to go.
First I found some MDF cogs and gears, two assorted sizes packs I had bought at a show a while back.  There were two large ones for a base and top plate and some smaller ones for decoration and also to sit over the spike.
I sprayed with a metal primer and then with a matt black.  The base and top plates, plus two smaller cogs were painted with a black acrylic and matt varnished.  The wings were made by die-cutting the openwork wing, then drawing around the solid shape left in the die-cut waste and hand cutting the solid backgrounds - four of each as I wanted them to be dimensional two-sided wings.  The front and back were then joined by a strip of the same heavy black card, with cuts made to each side of the strip so it would bend to the shape of the wing (thanks Sy!).
The decorative trim around the base and the clock face on the top plate were die-cut in the same bronze card as the openwork wings.
I found some metal cogs in gunmetal and copper, fixed two small copper cogs to the 'twirly' bits to frame the mask.  For the small MDF cogs, I used large gunmetal and small copper cogs on top. Then it was time for assembly!  It all came together quite well, though I had a bit of trouble hanging the ornaments from the edge, until I worked out I could turn it upside down rather than trying to fiddle with it from underneath ... duh.  The ornaments are souvenir key-rings from our travels.
The last thing to go on were the masks, front and back - they are tiny fridge magnets from Venice, so cling to the stand without the need to stick them down.
The finished candle stand:

Here it is in its final position :-)

The only thing I had to buy was the spray primer, which will get used for other projects, everything else was dug out from stash.  I absolutely love it :-)

Upcycled table - finished at last!

A while ago ..... nearly two years ago in fact .... some friends of ours bought a house and said if we wanted any of the 'junk' inside it, we were welcome to it :-)  There was a small table, with an awful peeling formica top, so I said I would take it away, do something with it and then give it back to them, all transformed.  I think they were happy about the first part, not so happy about getting it back ..... LOL.  The picture above, is the table after the removal of the formica and sanding down.

It may have taken a while for me to get around to it, but once I had started I remembered how I really like doing up furniture - I hadn't done any for years because our house is now, well, full!  So I have had a lot of fun with this table.  I started by turning it upside down and painting the base and legs with a cream oil eggshell paint, 3 coats, a day between each coat.  I should have used a primer first, then I would only have needed two coats of the eggshell.  Live and learn......
Then I started on the top.  Primer first, then a coat of emulsion in the same cream - a water-based paint rather than the oil-based, because of the finish I had in mind.  I wanted to cover the top in a Decopatch paper, cream with a gold crackle pattern.  Then ... disaster!  It looked awful and got worse as it dried - I have decopatched other projects with good results, but this just didn't work!  In the end, when it had dried, I decided it all had to come off, so I sprayed it with water and set to with a wallpaper scraper.  DS1 helped, bless him. 
I decided to do a proper crackle finish on the top, using acrylic paint and Paperartsy crackle glaze.  So I painted it with a coat of gold acrylic, allowed to dry, applied a coat of the glaze .... allowed to dry .... then painted over a cream acrylic.  The gold crackles appeared very fast and finally it started to look as though I might not have ruined it after all!  I also painted two wooden mouldings with the gold and adhered those onto the front and back using epoxy resin.

This is how it looks now, with a close up of the crackle effect:



I am very happy with it, if I only had the space I would keep it!  Can't wait to see the reaction when we hand it back........ :-)

Black and gold decorated tin

 










I have to admit, this tin is, er ..... striking...... :-)  Not my cup of tea, but that's OK, because it will be a birthday gift for my mother in law - and she will love it.  It has been several months in the making!

It started life as a M&S Belgian biscuit tin in black and gold and yes, I bought the biscuits for the tin LOL.  The lid had an enormous letter 'B' embosssed onto it, with the corresponding debossed image on the inside.  There were also letter 'B's printed on each side of the tin base and the list of biscuit types on the base.
First I dealt with the inside of the lid and the printed base, by making gold card inserts to cover them.  Then I had to think of a way to cover the big 'B' and I decided to use embossed black metal over thick card to make panels.  Then I used the TH rosette dies in all three sizes to make the rosettes in gold card and vellum.  The largest rosette also has an embossed gold metal centre with black crystal detailing.  I cut gold and black crystal swirls into pices and put them around the rosettes.  A line of gold crystal finished off the right hand edge of the largest panel nicely.
I was stuck for a long time on how to cover the side 'B's, ribbon was an option but I couldn't find one in the exact width I needed.  Then it happened that I was using a scalloped circle punch for something else and realised that it was just the right size to go over the 'B'!  So I punched out a gold circle, but it looked a little lonely, so I added two smaller ones each side of it.
The original idea was that I will make a general selection of cards to go inside, so she can send a handmade birthday card to whoever she likes.  However I am now toying with the idea of a mini photo book instead ......
But at least the tin is finally finished!

Fifty Shades of White

 


Happy New Year!  One of my resolutions is to use up all the stuff I have collected in order to 'do something with' - yes I know I have said that before, but this is the year!
Last year at this time, one of my work colleagues brought in an empty tin, which had contained a mug, because she knows I craft ....... it has sat in my craft room ever since.  However last week she made a remark about how she was going to organise her dressing table in the New Year, so I said 'right, you can have your tin back then... what colour would you like it?'  LOL.
Her bedroom is apparently all white, so that was a challenge!  I found this white diamond paper in my stash and proceeded to waste a piece because I wasn't careful enough while sticking onto red tape - it wrinkled and creased, I was lucky to be able to rip it off before it had stuck completely.  So then I cut four sections, and stuck those down one at a time, that worked much better!  I covered the joins with peel-off lines.
The paper edges weren't quite aligned, so I stuck silver lace trim around top and bottom.  For the lid, I punched out a scalloped circle in Bazzil Diamond bling and a smaller one from the paper.  Then I attached flowers, pearls, and a 3D butterfly, made by punching out two, sticking one down flat, then sticking the other just down the centre with red tape.
On the tin itself, I stuck another flower and butterfly arrangement (to hide where the paper was covering the lumpy seam of the tin!) and flat butterflies onto the other sections.
It took a lot longer than I thought it would do!  Not to my taste at all, I have to say, but I am pleased that it has turned looking pretty - and my colleague was very happy with it :-)

Decorated Frame

I haven't blogged since May!!! A combination of real life getting in the way, and severely depleted mojo has resulted in my not doing much crafting at all, except for half finished LOs at the monthly crop and some half finished decorated boxes. There's a theme there somewhere......

 

But I had to finish this frame - it's Krafty Karen's birthday present!

This is quite an 'upcycled' project!  Several things came together for this - the Prima almanac kit I got at the Trip down Memory Lane retreat had the large flowers and the pink paper. DH had returned from his parents' house with some picture frames he 'thought I could do something with'. The butterfly is from an old necklace, the stamped quote is a paraphrase of a Marillion song (Happiness is the Road) - Karen loves pink, flowers, butterflies .... and Marillion! The turquoise stripe paper was also bought at ATDML, I think it's from My Minds Eye. The smaller flowers..... well..... I bought those. Yes, I bought flowers. Only used half the pack, so Karen, guess what your Christmas pressie will feature..... LOL.

This project is also the first one where I have used my cordless glue gun, to attach the flowers and butterfly. I have never previously got on very well with glue guns, but after I had finished the flowers, I found myself standing in front of my craft desk, gun in hand, thinking "what can I glue next ......" whilst looking round the room!