Colourvision Clock

I finally got some good photos of that project that I've mentioned a few times now! Hurray! It's an altered canvas clock that I was inspired to make after seeing a scrapbook canvas clock tutorial/thread on SCS. And in honour of the return to standard time from daylight savings, I thought I would upload this project. :D

The clockworks and hands came from a cheapie clock at Walmart (<$5); I saved the frame and face part of the clock for possibly another project. I bought the 11"x14" stretched canvas in a duo-pack from Hobby Lobby. I've got no immediate plans for the other canvas yet, aside from trying to store it in a way that won't damage it. I used swirly grungeboard stars for 12-3-6-9 hour markings, and plain grungeboard circles for the rest of the hours. To colour the canvas, I painted two coats of Watermelon gel paint by Keepsake Colours (Plaid). Then, after I let the gel paint cure for about two months because I had no idea where to go from there, I got inspired by the Inpsiration Challenge #150 on SCS and finished my canvas off by masking my base coat with some grungeboard flourishes and spraying Memories Mists by Stewart Superior. I used the dark Amaretto and Wheatgrass colours towards the edges of the canvas, and gradated to the centre with Strawberry Daiquiri, Orange Juice, and Mango Lemonade. Finally, I sealed with one layer of Royal Coat Decoupage medium by Plaid.

To make the hour markers, I knew I wanted to use my fancy-dancy Distress Crackle Paint in Spiced Marmalade, so I took the extra step of applying a coat of colour (Daiquiri scrapbook paint by Making Memories) under the crackle paint so it would show through and look awesome. It turns out I couldn't see the undercoat through the crackle anyways, but that's ok. To make the Spiced Marmalade blend more with the colours on the canvas, I stippled Coffee Bean Brilliance ink around the edges of each hour marker, and also rubbed some brown ink over each piece with a tissue so the cracks would have a brownish hue. To make the markers stand out from the canvas and take centre stage, I coated them with a layer of liquid glass product, and mounted them onto the canvas using foam dimensionals.

And yes, my clock really is as hypersaturated IRL as it is in the first photo; I love it! :) It's really tough to get a pic of that kind of colour (mebbe my camera was too busy moaning, "It burns, it burns!" to take a good pic?)

Some comments and tips:

• Paint and Memories Mists can take a reeallly looonnnnggg time to dry on canvas. Usually MM dries within minutes on paper, but took a few hours on the duck canvas.
• Don't use a heat gun on canvas the way you would on paper. It creates an alarming smell.
• You'll want to glue your clockworks to the back of the canvas. Otherwise, it'll hang askew and interfere with the ability of the hands to move as they are supposed to.
• If your clock is making a tic toc sound but the hands aren't moving, the hands are likely hung up on each other. To fix this, just push the hands into the motor lightly with one finger on the hand on each side of the centre of the clock, if that makes any sense.
• I applied my Royal Coat satin finish using a plastic promotional card, like a credit card but not worth anything. The Royal Coat is less prone to showing brushmarks than Mod Podge is, and applying with a card allows for more consistent and smoother coverage.
• You don't really have to let your paint cure for a few months on the canvas. I was just being silly saying that.
  

Victory!

Yay, I'm so happy! I managed to not only find all the materials for but actually complete the altered pen project, and used one of the stamps I purchased yesterday! Huzzah! I **love** looking at the purple Himalayan poppies I picked out at Hobby Lobby yesterday, so I'm very happy with how the altered pen project turned out. The materials I used were:

• green floral tape (also comes in white at Walmart)
• spray of artificial flowers without too many poky or fragile bits
• pack of stick pens
• wire cutters (got mine for a buck from Dollar Tree a while back, so glad I did now!)

A tip on working with floral tape and pens is don't pull the tape tightly around the shaft of the pen til you're getting ready to finish off! The first pen I did is very sticky to write with because I pulled the tape tightly all the way up the pen, which exposed all of the adhesive that's in the tape.


I also worked up a card using the Rubber Stampede Santa Collage stamp I picked up at Michaels yesterday. I've been ogling this image for a few years now and decided to indulge myself and pick it up this year. This card looks simple, but I personally am not looking forward to finishing assembling five more of these babies before moving onto my next project. All that layering is a pain!!!! Santa looks a little bit (ok a lotta bit) like a hippie with his rose-coloured glasses. That was an unintentional design addition, cos I forgot that putting liquid glass over dye ink results in tinted liquid glass. Having learned my lesson, I tested other products before applying them to Santa; for the record, Stickles will also cause Distress Ink to run. I gave poor Santa a bloody moustache and eyebrows on my tester! Instead of adding any sparkle to give the focal image more visual weight, I opted to mount Santa on dimensionals. With all the adventures I had making this card, I had mixed feelings about the results until I showed it to Sheldon and he wholeheartedly gave it the Husband Seal of Approval!

Stamps: Santa Collage by Rubber Stampede, sentiment by My Sentiments Exactly

Ink: Walnut Stain, Aged Mahogany, Brushed Corduroy, and Vintage Photo Ranger Distress inks

Paper: starry paper from Memory Stor, green and brown cardstock by Fiskars from "Country" collection, patterned card base from the wedding section in Michaels.

Other: liquid glass by Plaid, Prismacolor pencil crayons

Sheldon and I also spent today together watching fun shows; our faves are primarily Japanese, British, and Canadian in their origins. Today we treated ourselves to:

1. the Lucky Star OVA
2. Chi's Sweet Home
3. Ga-Rei Zero
4. Skip Beat
5. Merlin
6. The Rick Mercer Report
   

Altered $ Spot Mailboxes

I picked up these three mailboxes from Target back in January, and it only took me until September (!!) to get around to altering them and sending them to my nephew and two nieces! It wasn't for lack of trying; I'd pulled them out on a few occasions and got total scrappers block. I think I'd made these mailboxes into some big, momentous project that had to contain some incredibly meaningful scrapbook, and that my first try at altering them had to have the absolute best results ever. Don't do this -- it's no fun and doesn't work!

You know what finally got me to altering these puppies? I got some super-good news (finally got a job offer for an awesomecool job at the beginning of Sept!) and in my euphoria, I sprinted to Target and enjoyed the heck out of shopping for gifts for the kiddos. I went wild, but not too wild (had still been out of work for two months, after all) and picked up some Hello Kitty goodies in the dollar spot for the girls, and a Lego Bionicles for Christopher.

My design approach (heehee that makes it sound so fancy and professional!) was to keep it fun (=easy) for me and geared for the kids' interests.

1. Pull out the special scrapbook papers I had previously purchased specifically with the kids in mind. (Do we all do this, or is it just me? No idea what I'm going to use the paper on at the time, just wanna get it cos it reminds me of the kids and I think they'd like it!)
   
2. Match up a pattern of paper with a mailbox for each kidlet.
3. Pull out coordinating items like Dora and Hello Kitty stickers.
4. Pull out fun 3D or bulky embellishments I had to own but don't use often enough, and decorate as desired to go with the mailbox.
   

Here is the bold, cheery, and outgoing mailbox tailor-made for Jory -- suits her personality to a T I think. :) The scalloped circle is lilac-coloured and has a fun butterfly background (from VLVS) stamped on it in Moonlight White. Chipboard butterfly is from Technique Tuesday. I applied the purple glitter by first coating the butterfly in liquid glass (like Crystal Effects), burying it in glitter, and then after letting the liquid glass dry and brushing off the loose glitter, I sealed it up with another coat of liquid glass. The monogram (and the two other monograms) were from a blue and silver self-adhesive monogram letter set I got at Walmart last Christmas. I'd previously used the only J on a birthday card for Jory, so I cut the letter U from the set to look like a J, covered it in two coats of Versamagic Aloe Vera chalk ink, then put on two layers of sparkly embossing powder.


I kept Christopher's mailbox very streamlined because I didn't think he'd appreciate the aesthetics of a camouflage mailbox with giant sequins or flowers glued on. :D I applied Coffee Bean Brilliance ink to the edges of the front and back panels of patterned paper for interest, and applied Graphite Black Brilliance ink to a holographic silver C for his monogram. Because the outside was so "streamlined" I added a more personal touch on the inside by sticking a pic of Christopher's Nichda'a and Uncle Sheldon on the door. (That's us in the Land of Milk and Honey, aka San Antonio on the Riverwalk. **LOVE** that city!!! My parents took the photo for us.)


Last but certainly NOT least is this sweet and cute mailbox for the sweet, cute, and smart Grace! All of the mailboxes were fun and easy to make, but this one especially came together quickly because I LOVE HELLO KITTY TOO!! Too bad I didn't buy a fourth mailbox for myself, so I could make one like this for me too!!!

Anyways, that was the result of my adventure with altering mailboxes. It was fun!