Color Your World

Hello All!

My name is Laurie Moore and I'm so excited to host my first challenge since joining this fabulous team at Our Creative Corner in January....

First of all I am very proud to announce that we have a new member joining our team!

Trish Latimer!

Trish is joining us today for her first OCC challenge as DT member and we think you are going to love the unique creativity she will bring to OCC challenges...We are so lucky to have her with us!


Before we begin I want to let you know about this months sponsor Creative Embellishment

 They are offering a $25 gift certificate to our randomly drawn winner.....It could be you!

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The theme for this challenge came to me while working in my garden.

Here in the United States we are coming into spring,
the season when nature comes forth with new life.

Soft green grasses grow in the fields and the trees bloom in glorious
colors with the promise of fruit.

Tulips and daffodils emerge from the soil after a long winters nap.

The colors of spring, the sights and sounds of nature at this time of the year renews my soul.

In the spring time the colors of nature are different around the world.

For my challenge this month I want you to

Color Your World

For this challenge create a project with the colors of spring time where you live.

Show us what colors renew your soul.




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Now let's take a look at our wonderful designers creation to inspire you.

If you want to see the transformation of these creations in more detail - just click the links!




Laurie

Coloring my world this time of year is to capture the feeling of warm sunshine and colorful nature scenes around me. Here in Oregon my favorite season is Spring.

 

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Shari

Laurie's challenge theme of Color Your World couldn't have come at a better time-- My world could use some color right about now!  With it being very early Spring, my outside world is still in its Winter dormancy and very drab and blah.  I jump-started Spring into early bloom for my brightly colored jumbo tag creation!

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  Jan

Spring is my favourite time of year for colour. I love the blue sky, the fresh green leaves, the yellow flowers and the robin in my garden building a nest! 

  

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 Astrid

  I love Spring and Springtime colours and decided to make colour the main focus of my project. It's a large birthday card for a friend, as April in Scotland often only means a promise of Spring, that seemed like an apt sentiment.

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Kerstin
 

I created a sayings calendar with a surprise in an envelope for a desk.
The title for this month is springtime feelings, my absolutely favourite time of the year.
I used my favourite colours - pastel in vintage look.
 

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Ana

Magnolia flowers in pink-purple hues, yellow sun, clear blue sky and green grass...perfect inspiration to step out of my comfortable zone....

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Lys 

 Also blue sky, sun and new grass... April reminds me of  an "April girl" song: so here she is in my Art Journal!

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Laura 

  Spring sky and grass - it had to be shades of green and blue for me!
.....with handmade flowers I was totally in my vintage shabby chic comfort zone!

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Trish

Spring is a very colourful time for me, I love the green of the new shoots, the blue of a sunny spring sky, the fabulous flower colours of red tulips and purple crocuses (to name just two!) I have incorporated all these colours into my quirky bird assemblage....

 

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Julia

I've chosen to use the beautiful yellow, orange and green colours of many spring flowers such as the daffodil and the crocus.

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Candice 

A tropical spring in my part of the world means a bursting of rich and vibrant tones, so for me it had to be the rich and vibrant sequins that colour my world in this shaker card.

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    Bring your Spring creations to Our Creative Corner this month and you could be our Winner! You could be basking in the spotlight of our Top Talent Feature!

You could be one of our wonderful Top 3 and you could even find yourself heading for a wonderful shopping trip at Creative Embellishments

Challenge is open until April 28th at 11.55pm

Good luck and Happy Crafting!

Goodbye...

    We are sadly saying goodbye to two members of our team today. This month was Pamellia's final appearance at OCC as a DT member and next month will be Astrid's final appearance with us.

   Their total commitment to team work and the loyalty, kindness and support they both provided to everyone at OCC will be very much missed. Their inspiring creations will also be very missed, not just by the DT, but by the OCC audience as well....

   We are so very happy to know that they are not going to vanish completely from blogland. They are just going to be taking the time to focus on other things.

   We would like to thank both Pamellia and Astrid for bringing such inspiration to you all. They have been such a wonderful part of our team and we would like to share with you a look back at some of their wonderful work and enjoy the inspiration all over.......We hope you will join us in wishing them lots of joy and happiness for their future crafty adventures....

Pamellia

Astrid

Love from the OCC team
xxxx

A Most Manly Case of Metal

Servus, dear friends of the stave rhyme and of Our Creative Corner!

This month I want to share with you a most manly make. I needed a box for my sister's longtime companion's birthday present and as he is the kind of guy who likes cars, bikes and loads of other manly stuff I decided to create a metal case to put his birthday present into.

It is a rather simple creation (and tutorial) this time - but sometimes less is more and I also found that with moving on to new techniques and media one tends to forget about the "golden oldies". Well, silvery metal oldies (but goodies) in this case. lol And that's a shame, isn't it? So back to basics it was and I really enjoyed creating my tiny metal case!

Materials I used:

heavy white card (200g/m2), A4 size
a suitcase template (either a tracing template or a printed one - for various templates click HERE)
metal ruler
craft knife
cutting mat
scissors
glue
Brushed Pewter Distress Stain
Carbon Black DecoArt Traditions acrylic paint
soft flat brush
kitchen towel
letter stamps and black archival ink (or StazOn)
Spellbinde
Sizzix Big Shot
MDF laser cut tag
chipboard gear
ball chain
(heat tool - optional)


1. Using my template and a pencil on an A4 sheet of heavy printer paper I traced the shape of my suitcase and cut it out. You can as well print out a suitcase shape on your computer. To find various templates click HERE.

(click images for enlarged view)

2. To get neat folds I lightly scratched along the folds using a craft knife and a metal ruler. Make sure you don't cut right through your paper (= don't press down at all...just let the knife "lightly scratch" along) and do this on the side that will be on the outside of the fold!

3. Then I ran my cut out and prepared suitcase through my Sizzix using the Spellbinders M-Bossabilities "Industrial" embossing folder. I had to do so twice as I could only emboss part of my suitcase at a time. Try to avoid embossing one area twice as this will create a "smudged" pattern by aligning your suitcase shape accordingly with the embossing folder.

4. The quickest way to paint my suitcase was to dab on "Brushed Pewter" Distress Stain generously and dry with a heat tool.

5. To tone down the silvery sheen and make my suitcase look more grungy I dry brushed on some Carbon Black acrylic paint using a soft brush. To do so just lightly load your brush tip with some paint and wipe off most of it on a dry kitchen towel. Then gently swipe on the "residue" from your brush. This will create great contrast and make the embossed pattern more visible.

To show you the difference and effect of the dry brushing I took a close up that shows the upper area being dry brushed whereas the lower section is still untreated:

6. Then it was time to fold my suitcase and glue it together.

7. As embellishments I added a lovely That Craft Place laser cut MDF tag and a chipboard gear that were treated with Distress Stain and acrylic paint to make them match the look of the suitcase.

I dabbed on the black acrylic paint around the edges using my fingertip (you know me, right? lol) but if you don't want to get messy you can of course use a bristle brush or a permanent marker.


 8. The recipient's name was stamped onto the tag using my all time favourite Hero Arts letter stamps and archival ink. If you want a more opaque look I recommend you use black StazOn ink instead.

9. The edges of the suitcase were treated with black archival ink using a piece of cut 'n dry foam. Tag and gear were fixed to the filled and closed suitcase with a short ball chain.

Done!

I am always surprised by how a little paint can make ordinary paper look like real metal...shiny, heavy and edgy!  I hope you like my rather quick and simple make for a man! What else would be a better gift wrap than a marvelously manly metal suitcase!

Hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia 

xxx

Christmas Leftovers 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 Christmas Leftovers Challenge that was hosted back in January by Pamellia!

Pamellia selected Sara as her winner and so we are thrilled to be welcoming her as this months Top Talent!!!

 Before we show you Sara's wonderful creation,  let's just spend some time finding out a little bit more about this creative lady..... 

 1. Where do you live?

 I live 15 minutes from the most beautiful beach on the Eastern shore of USA in Wilmington, NC.


2. Are you a spring, summer, winter or fall person? Do you feel you create better in that season? 

 I am a "fall person" with out a doubt! I can safely say my creativity peaks during the fall--just look at my prolific Halloween posts!


3. How would you describe your art for the general population audience if they have never seen it before? 

I let my kids answer this for me and they said "FAB U LOUSSSSS!" Seriously, I would say mixed media vintage/eclectic.


4. What, if anything, do you consistently draw inspiration from? 

Nature, yard and estate sale cast offs and Tim Holtz' blog--not just from him, but from all the bloggers who enter his challenges.


5. What is the one tool you couldn't do without? 

Easy.........my distressheatinkblendingtoolsandtweezerspapertrimmerwaterpen.


6. How do you spend your time when not crafting? 

 Cleaning up the mess I've just made, taking care of my spiritual self, my family, my home/garden, gardening, going to every yard and estate sale I can fit into a Saturday morning, exercising and working my 3 jobs. I also love entertaining and being with my friends. I stay busy! Did I mention Halloween--it is not a day for me-it is a 2 month event.


7. Any inspiring words you can share? 

If you love to make art or craft--DO IT! Never worry about what others think about your work--if you love what you do, others will love it, too! AND "embrace imperfection!"

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Thanks so much for being here Sara! We are so glad to have you join the OCC team and so proud that you could are here today as our Top Talent

     ....So now it is time to shine the spotlight on the Top Talent creation -  let's see what Sara made for us!

How wonderful Sara! - this is amazing! It really has been such an honour to feature this wonderful creation at Our Creative Corner.
 

Thank you so much for being such a wonderful Top Talent!

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

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Would you like to see your work here in the 'Our Creative Corner' 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 the 'Junk in your Trunk' challenge and if you are picked as the winner you will be invited to appear here as our Top Talent and have the spotlight shine on something you have made. We will also ask you some questions so that we can be nosey find out more about you....

Happy Crafting! 

Laura xxx

Crafty Individuals Sponsor Spotlight No.2

Hello everyone!

 Lys here,  introducing the second Sponsor Spotlight of the month

Crafty Individuals can provide you with many crafting supplies, especially rubber stamps, like the ones I chose (and it was difficult to choose).

 They are very precise and I love these vintage designs!

Let me tell you the story of how they inspired me....

Three ladies go out shopping and here they are in front of their favourite dressmaker shop: 

They admire the red one in the showcase, shining and new,

But they know that everyone can get a unique one, thanks to the many available patterns

Anyway the measuring tape can be thrown in a corner, as it's not a matter of length

Only their inner beauty can make them shine, and every lady can think that for herself

So they dream...why not go further and spend a night in Paris?

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Well, getting down to earth, this is the process: I took an empty chocolate box

In order to use both parts of the box, I first used alcohol inks instead of thick layers of paint, but I changed my mind several times and finally I only kept the drawer.

So I tried to make this flashy pink softer, and with a mix of terracotta and denim , this is how it turned out. I also used Stazon on stamps on the outside but I forgot to take photos.

I put a piece of lace fabric on the back and tinted it with Vintage Photo to make it less white.

I stamped the images on white or kraft cardstock and coloured the ladies with a mix of Neocolor II and Adirondack raisin (yes I know I am not very academic, I try things until I am happy).

Spots of Glossy Accents are put on the red dress.

I would love to know if you like this. 

I loved working with Crafty Individuals stamps and I am sure you would too....

So join Candice's challenge 'Junk in your Trunk' and you could be the lucky winner of a Crafty Individuals prize!

Have a nice crafty time!

Lys.