Who's for a makeover?

OK so this is going to be a bit of a mammoth post...lots of steps and lots of photos......and from my previous experiences with blogger this week I could well be bald by the time I get to the end of the post!

This is where I started...an empty yeast tin...I punched holes around the top of the tin using my Crop-a-dile. Two small ones opposite each other at the very top (these will be used to hang the voltive) then two rows of holes just below....
























The next step was to coat the entire tin with copper precious metal paint...don't worry if it runs as this is just the base coat for the crackle paint applied later. Allow this to dry completely.
























For the next step I smeared Viva Ferro paint around the middle section of the tin then it rolled over my damp Tanda Klimt border stamp to make an debossed impression in the Ferro paint. I then allowed this to dry. NB it is very important to clean the stamp straight away otherwise it will be completely ruined!


















Using my fingers I worked various acrylic paints into the Ferro and finished off with some more precious metal paints again using my fingers again this was allowed to dry


















Once this was dry I plastered the bottom section of the tin with a thick layer of Viva Croco paint. Using a spatula I got a reasonable smooth finish this was allowed to dry and crack. Then I plastered more Croco paint around the top of the tin. This time the holes were a little tricky so I decided to to the equivalent of the snow icing on Christmas cakes, you know the one where you bounce the palette knife up and down to deliberately get a rough texture....this way my holes reappeared!



















When everything was dry I found that some of the cracks had gone all the way back to the tin in places so I rubbed some more acrylic and precious metal paints into the cracks and then finished off with a few spritzes of glimmer mist. I touched up the rims of the tin with copper precious metal paint and then my tin was ready for the next stage.......


I decided that I probably needed some more holes in my tin so that air could circulate enough to let the night light burn efficiently. I thought that holes in the bottom would allow cool air to be sucked in and the holes at the top would allow the hot air out so I punched some holes using a hammer and a large nail.....


















Now it was time to add some more decoration. I threaded some copper lined seed beads onto some fine olive jewellery wire. This was then wrapped and threaded though the top row of holes then tied off inside the tin.



Using a wire jig I bent some thick copper wire in a series of loops to form the handle of the voltive..each time I made a loop, I simply lifted it off the jig and moved it along to make the next loop, this way I got nice even loops. Make sure you make an odd number of loops otherwise your voltive will not hang properly.



I made 7 loops on my handle. Here it is ready to be attached to my tin.....




















I passed my wire through the two small holes (already mentioned in step 1) and then wound two more loops on the outside of the tin. I was going to dangle some beads from these two loops but then I changed my mind....


I decided to use my olive jewellery wire and do some crochet....I threaded some pretty co-ordinating beads onto the wire, then using a large crochet hook I did a simple chain stitch pulling a bead into each stitch...







this was then laced through the loops of the handle ....et Voila....a pretty night light, perfect for all the lovely evenings we hope to have this summer...fingers crossed.

I cannot guarantee how weatherproof this will be so I'm keeping mine indoors!

I'm really peased with how this turned out...it was a bit of an experiment and I had no idea how it would turn out from one stage to the next.

I hope that this little project has inspired you to alter a tin of some kind or to use any of the techniques I have used, it would be great to see what other people do with these ideas!

Sue
x

Texture and Tuesday Taggers

Hi there, I seem to have been very busy in the garden over the last week so I'm a little behind on my blogging....I saw on Zoe's blog that this week's Tuesday Taggers Challenge is to make something touchy feely with texture....I thought that this was the perfect excuse to get on with two other challenges, namely my own to my Tanda chums who came to Wantage...
basically to alter/decorate a yeast tin and the other was to make something using the Paula shell tissue and fragments that Janet gave usWell I can now report that I finished my yeast tin this morning, and have to admit that I think it worked really well....so I want to blog it with step by step piccies which is going to take rather a long time me thinks! So just for now here is a sneaky peak....





I haven't finished the other challenge yet,but thought that I would share what I have done so far...basically I stamped the PSX seahorse into Fimo, coated it with mica powder, baked it and then added more colour using precious metal paints.

To give even more texture to the piece and emulate the seaweed that seahorses love to inhabit, I used Croco paint, glitter, stickles, accent beads and copper curls. The piece is still wet so this is as far as I have got....again I suppose watch this spot as I will blog the finished piece/card or whatever it turns out to be..... I still need to use the Paula shell napkin and fragments of course!





Unfortunately, the colours and sparkle don't really show up in these photographs. But here is a close up of the bottom of the piece.....

My Stash form the Artisan Show

Sorry guys I've been a bit busy what with starting my new job and visiting Artisan at the weekend. The feedback about the show has been good, several people commented that they preferred it to the NEC which was nice to hear.

The high point of the show for me was meeting the wonderful Leandra Franich. I managed to sneak myself in to her workshop. Leandra showed us how to make fabulous metallic look beads using the ferro texture paints, acrylics, glimmer mists and precious metal paints. First of all we had to coat the beads with a smooth layer of ferro paint, this was then stamped into and left to dry. While they were drying we smeared more ferro paint onto chipboard tags and stamped into it to get more texture.
The tags were for us to practice using the acrylic paints/precious metal paints and glimmer mists until were happy with the resulting colours so that we could then decorate the beads in the same way. I chose to do my fav colours blue/green and copper. Once the beads had dried we made them into ear rings...my eldest daughter has just had her ears pierced and has been eyeing them up and pleading!

The photos don't do these justice as in real life they are very rich and shimmery. The workshop really inspired me to make something for my desk at work...so if you keep checking the Craft Stamper blog over the next few weeks you might just see what I made. There won't be any peeking here until then though!

So what did I buy...well obviously some Steel ferro, Copper croco, acrylic (black, sage and tropical water) and precious metal paints (blue azure and copper)! Then I got a couple of mdf blanks to paint them on, some more beads (teardrop shape this time) and the paperartsy stamps that I had on my wish list...and a few more to be honest! I also managed to get hold of some grungepaper and cut and dry foam, I've been itching to have a play with this since seeing the patchwork bag in craft stamper...I have another project in mind though..watch this space. Then finally but not at all least I found some beautiful stamps from Chapel Road Artstamps. Sue if you're reading this....you now have a stamping shop "Snazzys" just behind the Renault building in Swindon....she stocks these lovely stamps and loads and loads of inkpads...oh I forgot to mention I bought a few of those too!

There were a few things on my wish list that I didn't manage to find so I will just have to go to the NEC as well....LOL!