Welcome


Hello, my name is Dionne and I have been crafting for a very long time. As a very young child my mother tried to teach me to knit, it was a disaster. However, it must have sparked an interest in making things and, partly to prove that I was not totally useless and partly because I really wanted to make things, I taught myself to crochet. Over the years I have developed a love of cross stitch and all types of paper craft ..... I eventually even taught myself to knit.


I am married to a very understanding man, thank goodness, because I spend all my time either crafting, thinking about crafting or talking about crafting. I am hopeless at housework and dinner is often late!


Thank you for visiting my blog.


Dionne

Monday 15 September 2014

Steampunk Notebook

Good morning.

I hope you had a good weekend, I had a great time yesterday, I spent the day locked away with my craft stash and lots of new goodies.

A new Challenge starts today at Crafty Boots Challenges, but this is not some ordinary challenge, this one is in celebration of Crafty Boots third birthday.  I remember the morning of that first challenge so vividly.  I sat nervously hunched over my laptop at 10am waiting to 'press' the publish button.  At that time I had no idea that you could schedule posts, in fact, I was hardly able to load the photos of my project.  I had been crafting for over 35 years yet I knew nothing about blogs, I am sure Stephanie-Emma had her fingers crossed behind her back when she convinced me I could do this - and to be honest with you, I have not really improved over the past three years.

To celebrate this anniversary Crafty Boots Challenges are revisiting the theme of that first Challenge and the theme for the next two weeks is 'Anything Goes'.  As part of the celebrations, Crafty Boots Challenges are offer guest design team spots to the winner and two runners up of this Challenge.


This Challenge was a great opportunity for me to open up all of those new packages and to start playing.  I wanted to make something a bit special for this challenge and I knew just the thing.  I recently bought two of the Sizzix layered Bigz dies, the ones with the texture fades embossing folders ... the bee and the dragonfly.  I have been itching to try them ever since I saw an amazing piece created by my good friend Lizette, AKA Mrs Beez.  Her fabulous steampunk project blew me away.


When the dies arrived I had been surprized by how large they are and, in order to use both on the same project I had to find a large enough surface, a A4 notebook seemed ideal.


I was so lucky, a local supermarket has been selling off some end of line notebooks at a very reduced price, perfect.  The notebooks already had thick covers but the plastic surface of the notebook was not suitable for painting on.  So, I covered it with a sheet of thick hammered card and painted that with bronze metallic acrylic paint.   To give the impression of rivets, I stuck some card candy around the edge and painted them with the bronze paint.  I stamped the card with an IndigoBlu Script stamp and their Tree-mendous stamp.


I then painted more sheets of card with different metallic acrylic paints, some of these I used to cut cogs and others I embossed.  I cut the insects out of soft drink cans.  I was not sure whether I would be able to emboss the cans but the actually took the embossing very well.


I used two cog dies sets, these were a Robert Addams set and a X Cut set.  I also used some very small metal watch parts to add to the cogs and to decorate the bee.  I decorated the dragonfly with flat backed gems.  Finally, I added black ink smudges.

I have had a lot of other ideas for how to use these dies and I hope to be back later in the week to show you how they turned out.

As always, the rest of the Crafty Boots Design Team have been working hard to inspire you, so why not pop over and take a look for yourself.

Good luck with your entry.


Dionne

I am entering this project in the following challenge:

Anything But a Card - Challenge No 39 Steampunktember.

7 comments:

  1. Wow I can't believe those cogs are cut from card!! I thought they were metal embellishments!

    Love the big dies they look great especially in the tin can! xxx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow Dionne, this is gorgeous! I really love all of your metal elements (and the ones that just look like metal) and those dragonflies are stunning!! I really love the copper colour palette, just breathtaking!

    I apologize, but I really wanted to say thank you to the Crafty Boots team for choosing my card as your first place winner for the Postcards challenge, but I couldn't find anywhere to do that on the blog. There's no winners post to comment on, I couldn't find a contact email for them or for you...so I came to bother you in person! I hope you don't mind the intrusion.

    While I was here, I had a look around and your work is amazing! You have a humble new follower. big hugs :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is truly stunning and you totally nailed all those things you were worrying about! The honeycomb in gold looks fabulous and I especially love the padlock. The card candy as rivets is inspired. Brilliant xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Dee.... I just love your notebook cover and I HAVE to get those dies !!! I love the fact that you used the aluminum can to make the bugs.... outstanding !!!! From trash to treasure. Thank you for creating with us at ABAC

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amazing notebook, a dragonfly and a bee, and those cogs, wow! Loved the way you chose the different metallic colours! Thank for joining us at ABAC, xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  6. Absolutely bee---eautiful! I love how you have created your bee and dragonfly and the backgrounds they are on are gorgeous! Thank you for joining in at ABAC. Cheers, Di

    ReplyDelete
  7. WOW... WOW... WOW!!! I love your natural twist on the Steampunk theme. The Bigz Bee and Dragonfly are going on my wish list... I too love my flying friends. Thanks for joining us for STEAMPUNKtember Challenge No. 39 at Anything But a Card Challenges!!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting my blog, I look forward to reading your feedback on my work. I hope you will visit again.

Dionne