Iron Maiden

Hello folks, and welcome to my blog.  This is my contribution to the Dragon's Dream TIO challenge Dress to Impress- the recipe being a dress or dressform, an embossed impression and some bling.

Sewing Room is one of my favourite Tim Holtz Alterations dies and I've used the dressform again and again.   And I'd just taken delivery of the new Embossabilities folder from Spellbinders and was itching to play with it, so I decided on a "steampunk" look for my dressform (surprise!) Once I'd embossed and coloured my tag with Distress Inks (Rusty Hinge, Tea Dye and Stormy Sky)  I cut the dressform in kraft card and another body piece from card I'd covered with aluminium insulation tape distressed as per Tim Holtz's tutorial and then added the AB crystals.

The last job was to stamp the words "Iron Maiden" using a set of alphabet stamps onto card coloured with Vintage Photo DI, and there we are! 

I hope you enjoyed your visit - you're welcome back at any time!

What's Behind the Door?

The latest Dragons-Dream Tag-It-On challenge recipe this time is to make a tag with a door, a lock and a key.  The door stamp is from Crafty Individuals and the lock and key are actually meant as a toggle clasp for a bracelet (slightly altered with the help of memory wire cutters).  The background is shades of Distress ink (Pine Needles, Weathered Wood, Broken China, Lilac and Vintage Photo)layered and blended and flicked with water.  Alice and the door are cut out from a separate sheet and layered onto the tag after being coloured with Promarkers.

Whew - just in time!  Hope you like it!

Ironmongery with Ambition

Hi folks, thanks for coming by.  I really appreciate your visits and I hope you enjoy reading my ramblings and looking at my efforts.  Today I'm featuring my entry for DragonsDream Tag-It-On challenge, theme - Self-Propelled Flowers.

“Butterflies are not insects,' Captain John Sterling said soberly. 'They are self-propelled flowers.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls .  One of my favourite sci-fi authors, and one of my favourite books of his.  In some of his books, Heinlein wrote about self-aware machines - computer "brains" that became so complex that they "woke up".

So here's my "butterfly" - some ornamental ironmongery that woke up and wanted to transform into something different.

 

The roses I painted with texture medium and then painted grey for a stone effect.  The die-cut corner pieces (dies from Marianne) have been given a coat of gilder's paste, as has the little body piece.  The tag had various shades of blue and green DI's (Broken China, Weathered Wood, Spruce and Evergreen) blended over it and the little butterflies (from Lavinia) were stamped in Stormy Sky.  The sentiment is one I made with my Imagepac and is stamped in Cobalt Archival ink.

 

And there we are, sidling in just as they shut the doors again.  I hope you like it, and you'll call again soon.  Bye for now!

 



Happy Accidents!

The recipe for Dragons Dreams TIO challenge this time out is -

• handmade background,
• interesting character(s),
• quirky twist.

Here's my interpretation!

This did not start out with the recipe in mind.  In fact, it began as a way of using up some of my, er, "happy accidents".  As you know, Crafters Never Waste Anything.  We are Nature's Recyclers.  And when I managed to get glue on the front of the tag I'd been preparing for another challenge, I didn't throw it away (it was a Inkssentials Kraft tag, after all!)  As I'd started with a background stamp of clock faces, I continued the theme with the sentiment and stamped some more clocks onto the tag.

I'd cut the dress form for another project, but then I'd changed my mind about using it, so after giving it a good rub with some Gilder's Paste (it's much more metallic in real life than the picture shows) I decided to throw that onto the tag.  The chain was also a left-over and I'd made three bronze-gilded flowers for another tag and only used one, so that went on as well.  The wings were in The Box (you know The Box - it's where you keep all the bits that might come in handy.  Mine needs to be the Tardis, though...)  I put them on as well- you know how TIme Flies!

My bag of goodies from Crafty-Emblies included some pocket watches that were just the right size to make the character's face (watch-face - geddit?)  so after a bit of surgery to remove the loop at the top and a quick rub-over with a bit of Gilder's Paste, there it was, job done, and mostly by accident.

Hope you like it!