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....

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.


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.











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!

 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!"




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.
 
 
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!

Hi there everyone.






I am very excited to be invited here as Guest Designer by Candice and accepted her challenge of using the Junk In My Trunk!

All I can say is that I must have been a magpie in a previous life!  I cannot pass by an interesting object or product without it coming home with me for the sole purpose of making something out of it eventually.  I am always on the lookout for things I can use in ways that were never their original designers intention!

Therefore, I have various trunks from big to small to scratch through for this project.

I eventually settled on my mini trunk of keys and my general trunk of useful items to raid for this project.

As an art teacher I land up with many sample canvases which I have used in my day to day classes to show paint techniques on, so I decided to recycle one of the 12"x12" ones into a steampunk creation using the "DIY" straws which I found at our local Mr Price Home Store in the entertainment department.  When I bought them about a year ago, I knew that they needed to become copper pipes on a project, quite when that was going to happen was debatable, until Candice invited me to do this challenge!  Sometimes one just needs a little nudge to get going!


I then set about laying out the cogs, clocks and various items I had in my stash to see what needed to be glued down before adding some distress paint.  The white clock is a Sizzix die by Tim Holtz and the manila cogs are by Spellbinders.  The embossed clock is a Couture Creations folder called Renaissance which I cut out by hand after embossing it.


Below you can see the wet distress paint which I added over the top of the glued die cuts.  The paint looks very different when it dries.


Here is my mini trunk of keys.  I took out my two favorite ones and made a silicone mold of them and poured some polyurethane into the molds and made my own keys.  This way I can use them again and again and again!  The brown ones in this photo are the originals and the white ones are the molded ones.  The nice thing about the molded ones is that they have flat backs and glue down so easily to a canvas or project.


I used ordinary acrylic paint in raw umber to paint the keys and then when they were dry, I lightly brushed them with some Inka Gold gold cream paint by Viva to bring out their textures and patterns.