Thursday 29 March 2012

Zelda - Ocarina of Time.

Flo, a good friend of ours is born on april first.
She was here last weekend so we decided to give her our homemade gift.

My husband and I have been working on it for about 2,5 weeks to make it as perfect as possible.

The idea itself came from my husband. Let's make a jewellery box inspired on Zelda's Ocarina of Time game.

Here are the picture's :
We made all the shapes out of foam.
Then we glued them on the clean jewellery box.
After all the shapes were on the box we spray-painted  the whole box green. 












Link's Sword.

Navi.

Deku Shield and some random vase.
You have to find your hearts somewhere!

Ocarina of Time. 

Whit a small brush I painted all the shapes in the colours the have in the game.
Hylian Shield.

We made sure that all de details match the Original Zelda Ocarina of Time Game.
It took a lot of work but we love the outcome!
Purple Spring!

My mom gave me an old alarm-clock to dismantle for the gears and other parts.
After reading Minxy's blog I was inspired to use the outside for a different project.

Here are the results :


All the different parts after taking apart the alarm-clock. 
The clock used to be black&white with a "cow" motive.
So, I decided to paint it purple.  
As you can see, the clock had a cow face on it as well! 



I absolutly love the end result!
Simple, Fun, Cute, Spring, Pretty, Loving It!

As promised, I won't use this in any challenge out of respect for Minxy's awesome and inspirational idea.

Thank you so much for the inspiration to make this lovely project!


Altered Bottle Collection.

After doing the Bottle It! Challenge from SSS&S I decided to make some more.

This is what I got so far;



some close-ups from the vintage, flower bottle. 





The complete collection so far, in the middle the 2 small bottles I used for the SSS&S Bottle It! Challenge.

Sunday 18 March 2012

Simon Says Stamp and Show... Anything Goes! Challenge

Another week, another challenge.

Anything goes, the perfect excuse to finally start with the masks I've been planning to alter for a while now.

I didn't make a lot of progress picture's but here's what I do have :

This is what the mask looks like without any altering.
You can buy these in some of the craftingshops around.


First step : painting the mask in a dark brown colour.
Second step : using the paper mosaic technique from Tim Holtz.
Third step : putting on a glossy varnish.
Fourth step : cutting and painting the gears (Tim Holtz design).
Fifth step : adding all the gears and some shiny stones to finish it off. 
The result : A completely over-the-top, steampunk-style crown!

This is also the picture I will enter in the SSS&S Anything Goes! challenge.



Wednesday 14 March 2012

Crafting Explosion!

So many ideas, so much to do, so little time...

We are busy with a couple of projects at te same time;

1) Because I really liked the bottle challenge from Simon Says Stamp and Show (SSS&S) I decided to make some more. (update : result posted on 29 March 2012 : Altered Bottle Collection.)

2) My mom gave me an old alarm clock to dismantle for all the little parts inside. (update : result posted on 29 March 2012 : Purple Spring!)

3) The SSS&S project from Minxy, UK (http://thealteredinker.blogspot.com/2012/03/time-traveller.html).
I really love the way she used the clock for a project after taking out the parts!
So, I decided to do the same.
Well, almost the same. I'm going to make it into a vintage springtime project for my mom as a gift for mothersday. (I know it's still a few weeks away!)
Since I feel like I'm stealing Minxy's original idea I won't be using it for any challenges out of respect for her creativity. Minxy, thank you so much for this lovely inspirational idea! (update : result posted on 29 March 2012 : Purple Spring!)

4) A steampunk-style Mask! I wanted to do something different, something I haven't done before. Then I realized I still had some clean masks to alter somewhere. I found them and started with one. I'm going to use the paper mosaic technique from Tim Holtz. (update : result posted on 18 March 2012 : Simon Says Stamp and Show... Anything Goes! Challenge)

5) My husband had this awesome idea for 2 friends of ours as presents. Since I know they will read this I'm not going to tell anything about it just yet but it's one of the many things we are working on right now. (update : result 1 of 2 is posten on 29 March 2012 : Zelda Ocarina of Time)

6) I don't know what to make for the SSS&S challenge for this week! Anything goes.. I think I might use the mask for it if I'm going to finish it on time... (update : result posted on 18 March 2012 : Simon Says Stamp and Show... Anything Goes! Challenge)

7) An other friend of ours asked us to alter his brandnew nerfgun (Barrel Break IX-2) like we did ours before. YAY! More practice! (update : the finished result picture's of our own Nerf Gun are added to the post on 8 March 2012 : NERF - BARREL BREAK IX-2,) 

I feel like there's more going on in the crafting area that I just don't seem to remember right now....

Anyways, there will be a lot to blog about in the coming days!

I hope you'll enjoy!

Friday 9 March 2012

Simon Says Stamp and Show... Bottle It! Challenge.


March Inspiration Emporium Go Green challenge.

So, I read about the Bottle It! challenge from SSS&S and the Go Green challenge from Inspiration Emporium and decided I would join in the adventure!

I still have a huge collection of pretty wine bottles that I saved with the intention of using it for some crafting.
So far I didn't have any idea what to do with them untill today.

I was so lost in my crafting that I forgot to make picture's of the process but here is the result;

This is one of the bottles I used.

My Steampunk bottle. 

My Vintage bottle.
The picture I'm going to use for the March Inspiration Emporium Go Green! challenge. 

All 3 of them together. 

The picture I'm going to use for the SSS&S Bottle It! Challenge
First I painted the outside of the bottles in the chosen colours.
After that I started decorating them with the ribbons, chipboard labels, gears and other stuff.

Before I could put on the steampunk decoration I had to paint them in bronze and gold because they all had the wrong colours. Even the chain was silver! I got all parts (except the chain & the charm) out of a broken clock and a broken pen.

I really like how they became completely different and still remain a matching set.

I really enjoy participating in these challenges because they inspire me to try out new ideas.
And I'm very curious to see what the comments will say.

I can't believe how much fun I'm having with my crafting since I started this blogsite!

Thursday 8 March 2012

NERF GUN ~ BARREL BREAK IX-2.

As promised I'm going to show you how my husband transformed his second Nerfgun into a Steampunkgun.

This time he has chosen for a Nerf Barrel Break IX-2.

NERF BARREL BREAK IX-2



source : google
http://sgnerf.blogspot.com/2010/07/nerf-barrel-break-ix-2-review.html

Before he dismantled the gun, he sanded of the nerf logo's from the gun. 

Then he had to dismantle the gun so he could spray-paint the different parts as a base.

Some picture's of the inside of the gun.
A good reminder when you have to assemble it again!
He spray-painted the different parts of the gun in a flat black colour.
Flat black seems to be the best base colour for steampunk projects that you want to give a silver/gold/bronze colour. 


Once the paint was dry he assembled the parts back together.
Although this isn't at all what the gun is going to look like in the end, it already looks very different compared to the original colours.  
After dry-painting the gun with dwarven bronze,  shining gold and boltgun metal, this is what it looks like now!



Crafting Room & Inspiration Board.

After figuring out what crafting means to me my husband decided to make me a deal;
If he could move our 2 computer desks into the living room then he would help me create a crafting room upstairs in (what was before the change) the stock/computer/workroom.

And so we did.
I went looking for the perfect idea's to design the room and he did al the hard work.

My bookcases (Billy/IKEA) that used to be in the living room moved upstaires, which I really like.
Some of the big closets (PAX/IKEA) stayed, holding the laundry dryer and some other workstuff.
And we bought some new cabinets and a desk (Expedit/IKEA) to complete the room.

So, the furniture was finished, now I had to unpack all the boxes and give everything a place.
I'm almost finished and at last, I can really call it my own little crafting room!

The thing that was still missing was a inspiration board.

I never knew this is what is was called along the crafting community.

Without knowing I have always been busy with inspiration boards and even inspiration walls, a place to collect the objects that inspire you in your work or day-to-day life.

So, this week, I finished my design for the board and we placed it on the wall.

Here are some picture's of the crafting room;
(I just LOVE IKEA! Did you notice?)

My new expedit cabinets & desk.
The vintage trunk underneath holds my unfinished projects. 
A close-up from a part of the storage of crafting-supplies.
Underneath the desk are still some unpacked boxes and an old trunk that I want to overhaul.
Some clever storage and a framed puzzle. I absolutely love the picture on the puzzle!
We made the puzzle together last winter (2010), it's a 2000 piece puzzle and it took us a while to finish it. 
Next to my desk is my little girls desk (Lack/IKEA) and chair (Mammut/IKEA). It has a little storage unit (Bygel/IKEA) on the wall which holds her krayons, big pencils and markers. On her desk is the purple box I made with her small pencills & erasers.
The bookcases (on the right) hold my book collection as well as storage boxes.

Since my little girl is my biggest inspiration I found it only fitting  to hang the new inspiration board above her little desk. It's exists out of 2 notice boards which I painted. 
I used the "Dark Dudes" thin-plates, that we already had for a long time but never really found a place for, as a base for the coloring. And the first edition to the board was of course the March 12 tags of 2012 I made for the Tim Holtz challenge.  

Because we really want to move to another house we didn't paint the walls.
Although it might take a while before we are able to move, we just don't want to spend to much money in our current home.

When we move however, it will be into a bigger house (one with an attic!) and there the attic will become the crafting-room. (including the laudry-dryer and stuff, but that's fine by me!)

I'm sure that the walls of that attic won't be white for a very long time!
I would love some purple and maybe even dark-red on the walls to pull it all together and make it completely my own.

But for now, I am absolutely excited with the result and it already made my crafting adventure a lot easier!


Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes.
Art is knowing which ones to keep.
Tim Holtz 

Wednesday 7 March 2012

Going purple!

Last month I transformed a jewellery box Dee's Style.

My little girl (3 years old) immediately considered the other jewellery box as hers.
So, I've been transforming her box into a purple crafting-box for her own little crafting corner!

The box I used. It's exactly the same as the one I used before.  That's why I used the same picture's.
Inside of the box.
The foam I used. 



Because I'm going purple I chose the blue foam to make the shapes on the outside of the box. 
I went for the less is more attitude in this case. 
I spray-painted the box purple. 
After that I started coloring the shapes.



The front and side of the box after coloring. 



The back of the box after coloring the shapes. 

Inside there are some funny erasers.


And of course her own supply of pencils.

Finished!

A jewellery box Going Purple!

And my little girl? She loves it!

I didn't put any special eyecatchers on it because I know she will try to get those off.
This way, it looks awesome and it's save to let her use it.
She is familiar with the "lock" and is very much able to open and close the box when she wants to.

I love making stuff for her, she is such an amazing inspiration!

I love you sweety!  ;-)