Morpheus Complete!

What do you get when you combine, a recipe box, broken jewellery, an old drawer pull and lots of other found objects?  You get a Morpheus box!

This was a Michael Demeng course I did and have had great fun playing with it.  The centre block is turned by either the key at the top, or the hand at the bottom.  I loved how the late afternoon sun cast shadows on the wall.

Yes, that is an eye at the bottom!

 From the side view you can tell this piece is quite deep to allow the interior panel to turn.

Paint techniques - faux metal / copper

The centre panel is made from wood and each side of the panel has a vintage photo collaged onto vintage book paper and is treated to various paint techniques.

Doctor Deranged

The top piece is a drawer pull that has been given various layers of paints and texture to make it appear old and distressed.  The hand at the bottom is from an old dolly and has also been painted extensively.

Roger, the portly landlord

The key at the top is a radiator bleeding key that was painted and textured.  

Mr Evil

The studs down each side of the front are half pearls painted to resemble metal that has tarnished.  

The round piece at the base is the back from a brooch and the ivory face is made from a mold of a Star Wars figurine.  It is made from polymer clay and painted in faux aged ivory.

Alice the office werewolf

I'm so pleased I did this course, it showed me how to look at familiar objects in a very different way.

Secret Recipes!

I love playing with techniques, textures, recipes and effects and have been doing lots of them lately.  So that I don't forget what I've done, what worked and what doesn't,  I have finally created a little book to put them in. I call my book of samples.

Needing something to decorate the front of the book I have been on the lookout for a couple of weeks for the perfect item and I found it last weekend at a car boot sale.  It's a Starwars figurine that I used to make a mold, then created a flat back piece in polymer clay before painting with a faux aged ivory / bone effect.  The book is approx 8.5cm x 10cm and approx 4.5cm thick!

Let the force be with me

I have a feeling I will be making subsequent volumes since I don't intend to stop doing this anytime soon.

The front and back inside cover use old text roughly torn and glued to the substrate then using an edge painting effect before covering with a fine crackle medium and rubbing in a medium to highlight the cracks.  On the right hand side is the first page of the sample - burned copper.

Everything is coming up roses

The Take a Word challenge this week was Hearts and Flowers.  I  don't usually 'do' cute, romantic things,  I'm more of a brights and bolds type of person.  However, the aim is to challenge myself so off I went into a brave new world!

Hearts and Flowers Box

 I had the idea to take the challenge literally but knew the weight of the flowers and the heart would not be suitable for paper, so I decided to alter a small wooden box.

I have been playing around with the flowers for a few days now until I arrived at a method that resulted in something that looked like a flower.  Eventually I used white card stock, die cut with two separate Sizzix dies and then applied a treatment of water and distress ink.

The heart I made from white polymer clay and imprinted with a floral stamp before baking and colouring with a pale pink paint with iridescent medium, working it well into the grooves.  I then over painted with a colour to match the flowers which turned out to be a kind of apricot although the ink was tattered rose (pink)

 I treated the box to various distress techniques, from crackle paint, distress ink, distressed ribbon etc

This is a view of the crackle paint by Viva, I really like the way it cracks.  I rubbed the cracks with distress ink to get the ink into the cracks before removing the ink from the surface.

I made a video of how I did this and have put it on my YouTube channel here. 

Clock Watching

When I saw that the Take A Word challenge for next week was going to be 'Clocks' I immediately knew what I was going to do, until I started to make it.  I didn't like how it was going , so it was dispatched to the recycle bin and I began again, and so happy I did.  The results of my second effort are below :)
If you would like to see a time lapse video, you can see it on YouTube by clicking here.  (I'm only just learning how to record and edit videos, so please be kind :)

Time Flies when I'm having fun

I enjoyed playing with this one, I even got to include some polymer clay for the arms!  If you look closely there is a tiny 'diamond' ring on the 4th finger of the right hand :)

The piece is made of very heavy weight card stock, sprayed with Dylusion Inks and than stamped in many layers with Archival Inks.  The outer clock is from white card stock, dry embossed with a clock and gears design and then painted with Lumiere Halo Blue Gold, then the high points rubbed with Golden Iridescent Bronze.  The arms were from a fairy mold, and the other bits and pieces were ephemera from my stash.