MAKE TIME - January 2016 Our Creative Corner Challenge

Happy 2016 – It’s been a full year since I joined the awesome team at Our Creative Corner and I am so thrilled to be doing this again this year, you would be too if you had the inside scoop on what we have got in store for you this year!

Claudia has charged us with a terrific challenge this month – simply called “Make Time”. 

Aren't you just drooling at how open this challenge is and what is even better is that she has done given us the most exquisite moodboard and palette to work with. 


So many beautiful ideas arose out of this moodboard for me and I have to admit that I did make about 3 or 4 projects before I decided that this mixed media panel was going to be my submission.

Right after I tell you what Claudia invites us to do for this challenge and why you should jump in and join the fun, I will show you how I put together this little panel that I made for my 18 month old nephew Luke’s bedroom door – that’s him over there – and he loves gadgets and things and I have a feeling that he is going to get into Mecano which naturally leads into steampunkery soon!

So here’s how January at OCC breaks down -
Here is the moodboard where you will draw your inspiration from:

These are the rules of the challenge as stipulated by Claudia, the challenge host -

“I challenge you to calm down, enjoy what you see and let yourself be inspired by it (*the moodboard there on the left). No precise theme to narrow your creativity down - just the colours, shapes, directions, textures and hints of possible themes.
Whatever you make of it - it will be good! Whatever it sparks in you - I want you to show it and have a good time at your studio desks!”

 So if the thrill and gratification of creating something is not already urging you to join in this challenge – let me provide an added perk to get you in on this timely game. 

The sponsor for January is Creative Embellishments.  They will be sponsoring a generous gift to a randomly drawn winner from all the entries in this month’s MAKE TIME challenge.  In addition to that – special kudos are also given every month to the challenge winner and the Top 3!  

So get your crafty on and get jiggy with it!

Moving on…..
Here are a few highlights from start to finish with its varied texturing techniques and treatments on this project.  

You will note that I ended up with less gears but more pronounced gears and cogs.  

The end result seemed adequately grunge and steampunky to me – perfect for a little man who loves fiddly things!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE – right now I reckon that I am stomping my boots off at an awesome Psytrance New Years party in Shongweni, Kwazulu Natal – hope you are having fun too!

 Candice (aka Tincan Crafter)

Saucy Centrepiece

“We want you to grab any inspiration you like from these wonderfully exotic photographs...

Go for colours, shapes, textures, objects or style - There is certainly plenty of inspiration to choose from here in this selection of glorious, vivid, colourful photographs.
Join us in the summer holiday mood....!!!”

This is the challenge over at Our Creative Corner this month of August 2015.
Join in on the challenge because there are some nifto prizes to be won from our generous sponsor Tando Creative. Be sure to link over there (click on their logo to go) to see their mind blowing variety and collection of awesome stuff they have got going on.

I did a littl’ ol’ whoopdy whoop at this moodboard because my house loves these colours.  In fact I even have 

walls these colours, for real, “look it Linda, look it” 

So the moodboard made me do a little celebration dance, though that is not what that crazy picture on the right was about, that’s just random picture that got taken of me with my cute coloured walls behind me.  My lounge, dining room, kitchen is one big open plan townhouse meld, so whatever colour scheme happens in any one of those areas has to happen everywhere else too.

I have to tell you that when I see those vibrant colours like those in the moodboard, for some reason it makes me think of the Mayans, Aztecs, Olmecs, the Yucatan and that sort of thing.  I assume it is because of the association with the glorious, gorgeous woven cloth and patterns, traditional to that area.

So I had already had this little Aztec idea floating around in my head.

But I had a more pressing issue to deal with at hand.  Dinner time for me always requires one of the following hefty doses:  pickles, shaved chilli, Tabasco, Worcestershire Sauce. Powdered Parmesan, Crushed dried Chilli or Chilli-Garlic Salt and a variety of peppery infused olive oil blends.

Lately I have been thinking that I need to have all my condiment and sauce bottles on the dining table instead of hunting around for it in the cluttery collection of everything I have standing on my kitchen counter.  I get a little frustrated when I can’t get to my chilli instantly.

So anyhow, I did rescue them from the certain clutter kitchen counter death,  took them out and placed them in the centre of the table for easy access,  but……. they just didnt fit with the whole theme going on in the space that they were in and to be brutally honest, they just weren’t cute enough in their original packaging.

A plan needed to come together. 

The necessity of cuteness, the hot tamales connection and the coincidence of the August theme at Our Creative Corner culminated in this here my “SAUCY CENTREPIECE”.

Not only do they add a nice design accent to the room, but they do have a practical purpose, functional decor is a score!!!

I pulled out a bunch of different mediums and techniques for this cheery collection.  I have to give props and kudos to my favourite South African brand of craft supplies –  magnificent DALA.  Yes, you have heard me go on and on and on about them before.

The first order of business was to wash out some older sauce, vinegar and oil bottles, and remove the labels.  I siphoned in some denture cleaner, added some warm water and let that sit

for a while.  My idea here was that if it can clean dentures, it ought to sterilise the inside of these bottles as well.  It was well worth the look on the Dischem lady’s face when I asked where I could find denture cleaner.  I literally did see her stare at my teeth, as she tried to reconcile her confusion about my request for fizzy denture cleaner and my not so denture perfect looking teeth.

I then became paranoid about denture cleaner residue being in the bottles.  So I boiled the bottles in a vinegar and water solution – not sure why, I just thought vinegar would remove the residue and that it would work better if it was boiling hot. No scientific basis for this step, just paranoia manifesting in weird ideas. This kinda also got the labels loose off of the bottles – aha, that’s what I am going to say – I boiled them in vinegar to get the labels off.  Important observation coming up – boiled vinegar reeks and gives you a strange craving for S&V Pringles.

Now that I have the bottles all sterilised and vinegar cured – I got to the fun part – altering the bottles. I stained them with Dala Glass Stain, I painted them with Dala Glass Glaze, I drew patterns with Dala Glass Liner, I plastered on some texture paste on some bottles and dyed the design with Dala Suncolour Dye. 
I made wire symbols (with -you guessed it - Dala Coloured Craft wire) that I thought looked somewhat in-theme and wrapped them around some bottles.
I made up some fake Aztec/Mayan symbols (I didnt want to blindly copy some symbol and then find out later that I have called down some kind of curse down from Atahulpa or something).

To add more interest to the stained bottles I wire-wrapped or hempcord wrapped the necks of the bottles and added a few beads and the like.

I dipped some of the tops in a sealing wax that I melted in makeshift double-boiler to which I added wax crayons to dye it the right shade of green.

Now I am pretty sure painting glaze and drawing designs on a bottle is self-explanatory, so I am going to forego a (redundant) tutorial as I usually include for that. 

I am sure that you can work it out and have fun messing around that way. 

What I am going to include though is a little bit of information on the products that I used – if you’re a South African, you probably know them cos they are pretty household I think when you think of paint and crayons and playdough, but I do want to let you in on the fact that they carry some other really cool products like glass glaze and stain and liner that I didn’t know about until recently. They also have a ceramics line of products that I have not messed with yet.


 
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and I got jiggy with my new favourite craft thing GLASS LINER, this stuff holds shape and texture to a decent degree and adds a faux leaded glass effect. I am going to do a whole other post on all the  ways that I have discovered that you can use this awesome product to create some pretty darn awesome effects and texture some time later.

Finally I bust out the ol’ texture paste

and Dala Suncolour Dye Ink. 

Dala Suncolour will stain and dye ceramic tiles – I got some on my porch tiles and have never been able to remove it and it is still as garishy vibrant as it was four years ago when the accident happened. I have blogged about this before as well – here are some links to posts where I have done other things with suncolour apart from dyeing fabric – 
http://tincanhandmade.blogspot.com/2015/01/string-lights-alchemy-our-creative.html.
http://tincanhandmade.blogspot.com/2012/02/homemade-kraft-core-coredinations-duped.html
http://tincanhandmade.blogspot.com/2013/02/faux-weathered-leather-effects-with-dala.html
http://tincanhandmade.blogspot.com/2014/12/i-made-design-team-on-rad-craft.html
http://tincanhandmade.blogspot.com/2013/03/just-because-i-wanted-to-add-second-tag.html

I’m telling you guys DALA is the freaking best, they have everything and at the fraction of the cost that you would usually pay for similar products in other ranges.

So that's my creation for the August challenge at Our Creative Corner

and if you want to get into a debate with me about it - I am going to stick little Mateo on you!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JI9iEgdujjA

RETRO Tim Holtz 12 Tags of 2014– August

                                                                                            
Disclaimer:  I didn't make it in time for Tim Holtz in August because I was busy with another exciting project that I will tell you about on the 11th of this month!

I did promise myself this that I would commit to make a tag for every month of 2014 – so I decided to go ahead and make one retroactively.

If I am submitting to the Holtz Collection, I try to stay within the Tim Holtz / Ranger line of products,stamps, trinkets and dies.  That challenges me to be original in the interpretation and arrangement of something familiar and well-known to his global fan-base.  I gotta tell ya though, while it’s lovely to rework the theme with my existing stash of Holtz’ings, the pressure gets cranked up. I always kinda think – it’s like taking a famous symphony and then putting your own touch on it, this is an extremely high-risk enterprise!!!  The devotees hold you to high standard so to deliver a half-holtzed attempt is something akin to sacrilege right? 

So since I didn't make the TH Blog deadline, I decided that I was just going to go a little nuts and use the layout and the technique somewhat but I would branch out of the Holtz collection and give myself the creative freedom to go where my eye and heart was leading.  On the right is the result boldly titled “Dreamer of dreams”.

Recently, I have been wondering about consciousness, forms of  knowing, seeing with different forms of vision.  I have become very taken with the quest to see how much more of the experience of consciousness we can experience.

I am so grateful to a few people in my life but particularly to my first husband  - “Bear, the Fire-starter” as well as my “Chairman Mau” who have both steered me in directions that got me to this point where I feel like I am slowly being delivered into a realm of consciousness that I didn’t know I could exist within.  

I am grateful that I finally have awakening to the idea that to be conscious is to love, to feel connected, and to embrace the dreams that exist inside my inner world that I have always been ashamed to acknowledge existing inside there.

I am thankful that I have the opportunity to express my inner vision through this medium of collage or mixed media art.  I have always loved the Holtz style because it resonates with how my mind projects my thoughts, feelings, experiences, memories on its internal canvas. There is something intimately familiar in his style that reminds me of how my mind sees, interprets and organises the world.  My dreams are vivid, in colour and a little all jumbled together in a wondrous, whimsical medley of sights and sounds superimposing themselves on existing memories and feelings.  I love that I can express the incredibleness of it somewhat through the medium of art.