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

Smokin Hot Sneaky Teaser

Yep, its on!!!!  Watch the video above to get a hint of what I have got going on - going live -7:00 GMT - 19th May, 2015  over at  Our Creative Corner

Its a bumper issue Sponsor Spotlight (with tutorials) for 6 designs that I worked using the AMAZING
Water Effects 1 Collection from Designs By Ryn

You will not believe how awesome this collection is and how much mileage you can get out of it, just by tweaking your technique a little - I'll show you that over there at Our Creative Corner

Go on over there now! I'm excited about it - now you get excited too!
Tincan

STRING, LIGHTS, ALCHEMY!!!! - Our Creative Corner January 2014 production -

I am still celebrating having made the design team over at OUR CREATIVE CORNER for this year and I am so amped (pun intended) to present a little tutorial for my stringform lamp project that I created for the January 2014 challenge.





If you haven’t already come from there – why don’t you click the image on the right to browse through the creatively diverse projects created by my fellow uber-talented teamies, you will also be able to see the challenge entries created by the readers themselves.  

The Challenge this month is hosted by Pamellia of my little craft things and this is what she says: 

"With the holidays merely a shadow behind us, my guess is you still have bits of Christmas leftovers stashed everywhere, not to mention bags of Christmas bits meant for the recycle bin. I am a hoarder of all things I think I might get around to using one day, and Holiday bits are no exception! Every closet, drawer and cupboard is overflowing with the little things I collected throughout the holidays. Things I think I might use and things heading to the curb.

Christmas wrapping, gift bags, tinsel, ribbon, gift boxes, tissue paper, Christmas crackers, wine boxes, empty gift wrap rolls, Christmas cookie tins, even the images from the fronts of cards I received...you name, I hoard it!

Let's put those bits to good use this month!

With that in mind, for my introductory challenge theme, I have chosen........

CHRISTMAS LEFTOVERS

To be clear, your project does NOT have to have a Christmas theme, I only want you to recycle your Christmas scraps.

If it's not obvious what Christmas leftovers you used, make sure to tell us about it, somewhere in your post."

And there you have it.  There are prizes to be won sponsored generously by http://nicecranedesigns.com/, so be sure to get in on this action and make your own project, if creating something is not reward enough.  If you still want to stay on this page, dont worry clicking the image will open the link in another window. 

Find the tutorial for the string form lamp underneath this banner.

For this project you are going to need the following raw supplies:

*Cotton Twine or String – the amount depends on how much you want to wrap around your object.

*White Glue,

*Plaster of Paris or Casting Stone Powder,

*Water,

*Paint, Dye or Ink.

* A protective medium like newsprint or lightweight packing cardboard,

*Clingfilm. 

*An long, rectangular object like a spaghetti jar or a rectangular vase. 

*Some bits and bobs or 

*Wrapping paper to make the Embellishments,

*UTEE (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel),

*Glossy accents or Dala Polyurethane Hard Varnish to seal the embellishments. 

*Wire (if you are going to make Wire do-dahs).

STEP ONE

Gather supplies.

STEP TWO

STEP THREE

Cover your work surface in plastic wrap and then newspaper – this project is MESSSSSSSSYYYYY.  Put on some gloves as well.

STEP FOUR

When your string thing is dry to the touch and firm against pressure – you may begin the unmoulding process.

• This however takes some creative figuring out.  Take a strong scissors and evenly cut away the top or mouth of your wrapped object.
• Using firm but gentle pressure, pull the inner object (the glass jar) out of the sleeve covering it first!  You are going to have to wiggle this one out.  Be patient – it eventually gives and slides out
• Using a chopstick or pencil – gently push the the sleeve towards the centre and pull out through the mouth you just cut. If you didnt cover the sleeve in cling film, the glue would’ve stuck to the sleeve and that would have been a mission to tidy up all the ripped pieces attached to the string form.
• Pull away the Clingfilm from the String Form.

WHAT NOT TO DO.

• I initially covered the jar in Clingfilm, then sleeved, then clingwrapped again.  This made pulling the jar out near impossible. The inner layer of clingfilm just kinda bunched up and resisted the pulling force.
• I had to pour loads of talc in between the inner film and the sleeve to get it out eventually, and so my moulded string form got covered in talc as well…

I solved this snag, by dusting off as much as I could with a soft paintbrush.  I then soaked the same brush in 2 parts Sepia, 1 part Black, 0.5 part white Dala suncolour and brushed that over all the spots that were still covered in talc ash.  I let that dry and my problem was solved.

STEP FIVE

You can now add embellishemts to the outside of the string form if you want. 

I made some paper beads from leftover wrapping paper. I dipped those in melted Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel to get that glassy effect.  I also had some glass beads on hand. 

I made a few curly wire forms and threaded the beads onto that and attached the embellishments to the outside of the lamp. 

STEP SIX

Get those Fairy Lights that are tangled beyond help, and stuff them into the String Form, making sure that they fill the whole form from top to bottom.

You can do what I did and had a few bulbs sticking out through the little spaces between the string wraps.

Plug in and love your new decor piece and tell everyone you made it all by yourself!!

Let me know whether you liked this tutorial and whether you were able to make one yourself in the comments below or even better on the January Challenge Post over at OUR CREATIVE CORNER
You also are going to adore all the gorgeous little goodies on offer by the sponsor for the month - here is a link to nicecranedesigns 

~hugs, light and love~

Candice (aka Tincan)