'Tic Tac Toe' Top Talent

           

Welcome back to another Top Talent spotlight at Our Creative Corner!

  
    This month we are shining the spotlight on the winner of the 'Steampunk Tic Tac Toe' Challenge that was hosted by Claudia.

     Our Creative Corner is so pleased to be welcoming Sam from Craftart who won the Tic Tac Toe challenge with her amazing Washi Balloon card.
     
     As usual, before we show you Sam's amazing creation - let's find out a little bit more about this very talented lady.......




 1.) Where do you live?

In the heart of the US heartland.  And I mean my house is really smack dab in the center!  I'm at the crossroads for North, South, East and West of this great country!  

2.) How long have you been crafting and what made you start crafting?

I've been crafting for as long as I can remember.  My parents and grandparents were all artistic and crafty, so it was something that I was surrounded by all my life.

3.) Describe a real life experience that inspired you artistically

Everyday life inspires me.  The mundane, the normal, the seemingly inconsequential.  The gentle flow of routine.  Everyday in the summer I have a hummingbird that visits my feeder.  This inspired my hummingbird card.

4.) If you could only use three craft supplies for the rest of your life, what would they be?  

Paper, paint and ink.

5.) What is the most useless item that you have purchased for your craft?

Ha!  My craft room is filled to the brim with treasures!  I never purchase anything "useless"!!  Seriously, I know this is going to come as a shock - but probably my color printer.  I thought I would use it to print lovely images, but I have never had the need.  Maybe someday in the future.  Who knows.

6.) Do you pre-sketch a design or do you just wing it? How long does it usually take you to make a project?

I usually wing it.  I have pre-sketched before, but that is rare.  I have some projects that take years, even decades to complete.  Other projects in just a few hours.  It all depends on the project and the complexity.  I'm relatively slow though.  I enjoy the journey, not the end product.  I realize this is very unusual.  I really craft for the process, not the result.  I don't know what to do with all the finished items that stack up in the corner and collect dust.  I'm open to suggestions!

7.) Are you a Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter person? Do you feel you create better in that season?

Oh no!  This is hard because this is really a dirty little secret of mine.  I love being outdoors and I live in a climate that experiences the extremes, so fall and spring are my favorite times of year when temperatures outside are mild …. but the secret is - I always wish for horrible weather, whatever the season.  That way, I'm "stuck" indoors in my craft room.  :) 

 Sam has created a really stunning showstopper for us today.......This box is so gorgeous!

         Thank you so much Sam for being here today in the Top Talent Spotlight and designing such a beautiful project for us. It has been such a pleasure to feature your work.

     If you want to see more photos and details of how it was made, then please go along to Sam's blog Craftart and say "Hello" - I am sure she would love to see you there!



                    Would you like to see your work here in the Our Creative Spotlight?

You could be here as our 'Top Talent' with the spotlight shining on something you have created! All you have to do is enter Claudia's 'No more Shopping Sins' challenge. 

You could also be one of our Top 3 and there is even the chance to be 

the winner of the prize donated by Crafty Individuals! 

            
          There is one more week of Claudia's challenge left, so why not have fun creating!
    
   Don't forget that Jenny will be here on the 25th to show you her wonderful Sponsor Spotlight! We hope you will all come over to see what she has made! Jenny will be very busy next month as she will be back again on the 1st February with her challenge for all of you!

Crafty Individuals Sponsor Spotlight No. 2

Hello and a joyful servus from Vienna!
Claudia here to shine another spotlight on some of our generous sponsors' products. This month our generous sponsor is:

And this is what I came up with after a joyful play with some of the Crafty Individuals masks and various spray colour washes and mists in green and turquoise... an altered box:

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I fell in love immediately with the two masks from Crafty Individuals: "Fabulous Ferns" and "Delicate Grasses". Not only do their names sound like a poem to me (I love it when language plays with its special "sound effects") but they also look absolutely gorgeous (and of course because I am a big fan of stencils).

 I took an image of the box as it looked before its alteration, the cut to size and already sprayed paper pieces, the used masks and the distress inks I used:

I am sure you will see them being used more often by me in the future - they are really gorgeous and as I love plants and especially the forest with all the wonderful ferns and moss, these masks have immediately become one of my favourites ;)
The image also shows the distress inks I used ("evergreen bough" and "walnut stain") and the ready to glue on paper pieces, which I sprayed in a large old shoe box to keep my desk safe and tidy.

I glued the cut to size, then sprayed and inked paper circle and strip to the box and added two layers of ribbon to the side of the lid for some texture.

As they were too "clean" and did not look enough "forest-ish" to me, I gave the ribbons a treatment with a heavily diluted Adirondack "Espresso" colour wash first.

When using the masks to create the paper pieces, I always put some heavy screw nuts on them to hold the masks and the paper down as the paper tends to curl as soon as it gets wet from the sprayed on washes and mists (and then the masks don't cover the paper properly any more)!


I also covered some areas with torn to size paper scraps to save some white spaces for the second layer.

After the first, sprayed on layer had dried, I added a second by simply laying the masks on the paper and applying Distress Ink on and around them with a blending tool.
See to it that you create some overlaps - this creates more  depth and the impression of wild forest growth.

Then I gave my "forest" some spritzes of water for a weathered look.

For a finish I sprinkled some Mr. Huey's "Opaque White" and some more Adirondack "Espresso" colour wash onto the image. Done.

I hope you like my tiny "forest box" and are inspired to create your own forests at home ;)
And don't forget about our actual challenge "No More Shopping Sins", where we want you to show and use some long hoarded and never before used items to get rid of your secretly gnawing hoarders guilt ;)

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia x

Burlap meets steampunk distress style

Welcome back to Our Creative Corner!

Being this month's challenge host of our "No More Shopping Sins!" challenge, I have also the great pleasure to introduce to you our Guest Designer for January......

Trace Metcalfe from inkypinkycraft

      Trace is an artist who you all probably know very well and I am sure she will have inspired you many times before with her amazing creations. She is with us this month to add her magic to my current challenge with her gorgeous Steampunk design!

  Welcome to Our Creative Corner, Trace, we hope you enjoy being here as much as we enjoy having you with us!   

  

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Well to say I am thrilled to have been asked to be a Guest Designer is an understatement. Some time out from blogland meant this was later than planned, but thanks for your patience ladies xx 

   So here I am and Claudia's theme this month is 'No more Shopping Sins' - using some much loved but never used piece of stash. 

     Now I am a huge fan of Mr Tim Holtz and adore so many of his gorgeous goodies, from stamps to idea-ology and of course, the amazing Distress range. So I do have a teensy habit of acquiring lots of his goodies and then feeling they are almost too nice to play with. So my stashed item, much loved but never used, is the new burlap panels...

Oh wow these are fab. The only trouble is I know need MORE! So here is my Guest Design make :

I have chosen some of my much loved and very well used Steampunk style stamps from Tim Holtz, some designed by Brett Weldele, lots of scrummy idea-ology, distress paints and got playing.

All 3 panels are done in a similar way and are actually fairly simple.

I started by adding some Distress Paints in Pumice Stone, Picket Fence and Black Soot to the base of the burlap panels...these are so fab as the backs are solid allowing none of that caving in that can occur with stretched canvas pieces. I added water and heat dried allowing the paints to do their magic. 

I then added some strips of tissue tape.

Now for the designs on the top. I created some textured pieces, using metal foil tape which was stuck to card and embossed and the distressed using Black Soot distress paint. I tore the edges as I like the effect. Hopefully you can see it peaking out behind this fab steampunk gent!

Panel 1

 

The image was stamped in black archival and coloured using waterbrush and distress markers. Then I went to town adding lots of my much loved stash of idea-ology. ( including some packs not opened like these fab word bands)

Panel 2

 

This was completed in same way as Panel 1.

Panel 3 

Here the image was stamped and colour added using Distress Ink, with colour removed from the gents faces using a waterbrush.

  Well, all that remains is for me to say a huge thanks for having me along and hope you have liked my burlap panels. They are so much fun to create and it is amazing how much detail and texture you can add in such a small place!        

A Very Vintage Christmas - Winner and Top 3

Hello everyone!

     Laura here to bring you the winner and Top 3 from my 'Very Vintage Christmas' Challenge.

   
  Thank you to all who entered this challenge - I am so glad you all embraced the lack of red and green and designed such gorgeous neutral toned creations. This was such a difficult decision because all of the entries were amazing and very beautiful! I loved visiting all of you!

My choice for winner of the 'Very Vintage Christmas' challenge is -

 Ana. K

I really love what Ana has created here. A beautiful altered box - It has a gorgeous vintage feel yet has some lovely contemporary touches too. I adore the texture she has added, the sewing detail and the layers. It looks wonderfully festive! She describes it as 'Christmas Chaos' on her blog - If that is so, then for the first time ever I have found a chaos that I love!

And my Top 3 (in numerical order)

No 20 - 2amscrapper

This is such a gorgeous tag! I love the layers the delicate detail of the lace and buttons. I also really like the fact that it still looks so festive without having used lots of traditional Christmas images.

No 22 - Julie Lavalette

This is such an amazing creation - so much work and detail has gone into into this and the result is beautiful. I love the use of the gilding flakes and the distress effect gives a stunning vintage look. 

No. 40 - Stempelomi

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 This is such a beautifully designed festive tag! The layers of inks and stamps all make up a wonderful tag. The vintage text is gorgeous too and I love the way the flower has been created.


Well done to the winners - grab your badges and we hope you will display them on your blog!

Remember there is Claudia's 'No more Shopping Sins' challenge running this month - Join in and you could be our Top Talent here at Our Creative Corner or one of our Top 3! You could even end up with a wonderful prize from Crafty Individuals!

.....And don't forget to come back on the 11th when we have the honour of introducing another wonderful Guest Designer to give you further inspiration for the current Our Creative Corner challenge.

See you then! - Happy Crafting!

Crafty Individuals Sponsor Spotlight

  Welcome to Our Creative Corner's very first 'Sponsor Spotlight'. 

Our sponsor this month is Crafty Individuals

 Crafty Individuals is a company that the OCC team are thrilled to work with. Their stamps are amazing and it is well worth checking out their website to see what crafty goodies they sell!

    For this creation I chose two sewing themed stamps -

Sewing Notions

French Corsets

  I loved making this - total comfort zone - I adore sewing images, so I was thrilled to be able to make something with these two beautiful stamp sets

     I decided to have the colour scheme of Coffee and Teal - and I got to work creating the picture for the frame. This was going to be filled with stamped images in a collage. I stamped the images with Potting Soil Archival ink and used a mix of Frayed Burlap and Vintage Photo DI - my two favourite 'vintage' inks!
 

    I cut out all the images and arranged them onto a sheet of card....I planned to have the sewing machine on the frame so I cut that out to show the detail of the stamp.

   Now to work on the frame. I covered two opposite corners with texture paste and in the corners I began to draw swirls with a cocktail stick. as the swirls moved outwards I made them smaller then finally patted the texture paste with a palette knife to blend it in.

      I left this to dry and then painted the entire frame with Vanilla Fresco paint. When this was dry I brushed Decoart Crackle glaze over the untextured parts of the frame.When the cracks had appeared and the frame was dry I rubbed some Chocolate Pudding Fresco paint into the cracks and wiped with a baby wipe.

     I added a metallic sheen using Treasure Gold Classic Gold and White Fire - this gave a more antique look to the frame.

 I added the sewing machine to the frame and also some white roses that had been dabbed with Walnut Stain DI.

          The 'swirl' effect is shown really well here - I dry brushed Chocolate Pudding Fresco paint over the swirls and then brushed some Treasure Gold over the paste. This really highlighted the texture.

      Normally I wouldn't have used such a dark ink on the roses - but I felt it looked right for this - fitting in with the brown tones and adding drama to quite a pale creation. A few teal and brown coloured buttons were added along with some leaves and a rose that had been layered with gesso and Dylusion's Dirty Martini and Calypso Teal and water spray (repeatedly! - I totally lost count!)

     I added some tissue tape as well........

     Crochet lace was a suitable addition for a sewing themed creation.

     And one final touch...a sprig of dried Grape Hyacinth....

        

        I really hope you have enjoyed the first Our Creative Corner Sponsor Spotlight - there will be two more Sponsor spotlights this month featuring Crafty Individuals products and these spotlights will be hosted by Claudia and Jenny.

   Don't forget about Claudia's 'No more shopping sins' challenge too...you could picked as one of our Top 3 or you could be our Top Talent and show your work to everyone here at the OCC....and don't forget - one of our lucky entrants will be picked by Random.org and receive a wonderful prize kindly donated by Crafty Individuals!

        So what are you waiting for?.....Dig out those shopping sins and join in the fun!


   

No More Shopping Sins!

Hi there and Happy New Year to you all, dear crafting friends!
It's Claudia here and it is my very special honour to bring to you the very first challenge of the new year:

No More Shopping Sins!

Use (and show us) one of your former "shopping sins"!  

I know - you all got fantastic new crafting stuff for Christmas (and of course you may use some of it too),  but we want to see one of those never before used and thoroughly hoarded "bargains" or former "must haves" at the center of your makes! And we need to know what "shopping sin" it was you used, so, please, name it in your post.

   When you visit our teamies' blogs you will learn more about their shopping sins they used...well, it's confession time, isn't it? So let us know about yours too ;)


So with this challenge it's all about New Years resolutions (did I hear someone moan?): we all know them, we all make them and we all know how likely it is that we stick to them...sometimes I think they are just made to increase our guilty conscience!

A popular pledge amongst crafters is ‘I will use up my stash’. Don’t we all have cupboards and shelves groaning under the weight of things we’ve bought and decided to save for a project that never happens? And then you feel guilty so you hide it under a new pile of (new) stuff! This January I decided that it's the perfect time to finally get rid of that guilt. I challenge you to find one of your former ‘shopping sins’, open the packet, stroke it one last time, and then USE IT!

So bring out all of those treasured hoarded items that you feel guilty for buying and put them on show - and make your secretly gnawing scrapaholic's guilt go away. As simple as that ;)  Isn't that fantastic? No more bad feelings about doubtable bargains and hoarding crafting stash! ;)

Having said this, the team from Our Creative Corner and me wish you a wonderful creative and happy 2014!

Talking about my teamies: they have once again created a bundle of inspiration for you and I am so happy that I am able to present the makes from the whole team this time...

...oh, and don't forget: this month

 our generous prize sponsor is 

 who donate a prize 

for one randomly drawn winner! 

Tadaah! 

All you have to do is enter a project to our challenge that follows the rules and the challenge theme! But for now on to the makes of the DT:

Claudia

I have been hoarding some awesome vintage dictionary pages for more than a year honestly (alongside some other treasures of course which I decided to use on this project too ;). So the January challenge was a real challenge for me too - but once I had opened (and die cut) the first page it got a lot easier. And I really enjoyed finally bringing these stored away treasures to life by using them!

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Jenny

I'm sure it would come as no surprise that I have a 'thing' about buttons - seriously, those pearly kings and queens have nothing on me!! Some have found their way onto projects in the past, but these Idea-ology ones have been kept in the 'DO NOT TOUCH' pot for way too long. Not any more...

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Linda

I guess I must rip open my new crafty goodies and use them at least once before they go into the hoarded stash because I had a tough time finding something that had never been used.  I finally came up with the black Prima felt embellishment.  I've had it for years and have been saving it for a special project.  I guess this must be what I saved it for. 

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Alison

I'm a compulsive buyer of crafty materials - always knowing that I will definitely use that (whatever it happens to be) eventually...  

I got some beeswax ages ago knowing I loved the sheen, and seeing so many possibilities, and I put off using it again and again so I'm glad Claudia's challenge nudged me into it.  Just one way I used it on this project was to dip my tissue paper butterflies in... Come and visit if you'd like to see what else I got up to with my long-hoarded beeswax!

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Anne

Confession time - my name is Anne - and I am a hoarder!   This was a fantastic challenge for me, I got my very large box of as yet unopened Wendy Vecchi Art Parts packets (I opened and used 3 of them!), added my new colours of Archival ink and made this little wall hanging.

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Julia

I loved Claudia's challenge as soon as I saw it but found it far from easy. I have had some sweet little white fabric flowers lurking in a drawer for nearly two years and I knew now was the time to do something with them. I had decided the flowers were just not 'me' so had to put my thinking cap on for this wonderful challenge. I changed the appearance of the flowers to fit my preferred style! The sun is shadowing them in this image but there are clearer shots on my blog here.

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Astrid

I loved the theme of no more shopping sins, and had a great time rummaging through my un-used stash. I used not just one, but three neglected items, the little hanging board, the clock die and the rose stamp. And seeing this is January, well what better thing to make than a calendar.

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Laura

As this was Claudia's challenge I decided I really had to make something Steampunk inspired. I even used her favourite Decoart paints - a new thing for me and now I love them too! I admit I was reluctant to give up my perfectly stored Idea-ology treasures - but they look so wonderful here I am so glad that I finally broke open those packets!

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Well, that should have been a heavy load of inspiration for you I assume ;) - so I look forward to seeing your shopping sins turned into treasures soon!

Make sure that you have a quick read of the rules if you haven't been here before.  Otherwise we would have to skip your entry, which we definitely do not like, but we have to be fair to those who follow the rules.

    
 We had some terrific entries for Laura's Christmas challenge last month! Thank you all so much for playing with us and sharing your lovely projects ! Watch out for the winners coming soon.

Hugs and happy crafting!
Claudia xx