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It's been a while since I've posted and I am supremely proud of this project. I've had a recent return to starbooks and decided to challenge myself by working in black & white. Being a horror movie freak the natural subject for this was of course black and white horror films! I chose 5 classic scenes from black and white horror film to replicate in paper cut form. For most pages I started with a still from the film and then adjusted as necessary for each layer and to give the overall effect. Each page is made of 3 layers, white, grey and black and the films were arranged in chronological order. This piece was originally created for a competition.
page 1. The creation scene from 'Metropolis'
page 2. Dracula in his lair from 'Dracula'(1930)
page 3. Frankenstein's monster comes to life from 'Frankenstein' (1930)
page 4. The shower scene from 'Psycho'
page 5. The living dead approach from 'Night of the Living Dead'
'top view' - This picture was taken on display at the Sydney Royal Easter Show, The competition the book was entered in.
cover
I'm really proud of this and already planning more!
In November of 2011 I attended a scientific Illustration workshop at a Sydney museum and fell in love with scientific drawing but also the look and feel of museums and scientific specimens. This fits so well into the whole victorian steampunk vibe and I decided to combine my two current obsessions to create some steampunk butterfly specimens from paper:
Both together. The frames measure roughly 2.5 x 3.5 inches.
Butterfly 1 sans frame. The wings were drawn onto a rough watercolour paper, painted and cut out seperately before being reassembled with the body. The body was made from paperclay which was painted when dry. The background is scarbooking paper mounted to chipboard and aged with brown ink. The label was cut from a clothing tag, hand lettered and aged with more brown ink and adhered with double sided tape. The butterfly was glued into place with glue dots and mounting tape.
With frame. The frame was a standard mini-picture frame with a deep back. To make it into a shadow box frame I glued the glass into place and discarded the original backingand clips. I cut chipboard the same size as the frame and assembled the butterfly in place. The frame was then glued into place over the butterfly.
Butterfly 2 sans frame. This butterfly was made the same as the first. To create the pattern I used watercolours to lay down a base colouring then used two different colours of stamping ink, black and silver, to stencil through a piece of lace. The effect was subtler here, but I still like it. The frame was assembled in the same manner as butterfly 1.
Hope you like them, I'm happy to answer any questions.
This is my first completed clothing post, but I'm really proud of it and wanted to share. I love hats and wanted to have a go at making my own. The pattern for this cloche was from the book 'Staurday Night Hat' by Eugenia Kim. It was simple to follow and easy to customise the fit. It is handsewn using my growing stash of fat quarters which give it a casual, squishy feel. Now the pics:
action pic, side one: brown with teal polka dots
action pic, side two: green trees. It looks like I don't like this side, but I do.
Not as flattering pics of it not on a person.
As I said, I like this pattern, it has a subtle shape and short brim and is reversible. My hat is floppy because of the fabric but I'd like to try it is a stiffer fabric, like a wool felt to see if that gives it a different shape and feel. This is my first handsewn hat so I'd love any comments or criticism.
I figure these go here as they are made to wear with my steampunk costume (which I did NOT make, I can't sew). But I love my steampunk accessories!
First: the top hat!
Made with this tutorial. http://overthecrescentmoon.blogspot.com/2011/08/mini-top-hat-tutorial.html I used plain cardboard moulded around my party cup as the one I had had strange ridges on it that wouldn't have worked as a hat. I used black crat felt and left over ribbons. It is sewn to ribbon to tie into my hair when I want to wear it.
The goggles:
Made with an old pair of swimming goggles and leather off-cuts. All pieces are joined with scrapbooking brads, There is white elastic at the back but as I mostly wear them on my head the elastic is hidden behind my hair.
The cuff:
Made with an old belt cut to size and new holes punched. It looks really chunky and industrial.
The 'watch-hider':
A result of being dressed in my steampunk costume and then going "what do I do with my watch?" I obsessively need to wear a watch at all times, but my watch happens to be a blue plastic super-man watch. This cuff is made with lace and felt with two slits that the watch band slides through. Then I can simply do the watch up as normal and snap the cuff closed around it, hiding the watch and making it blend-ish into my costume.
A simple craft but it seems effective. After a crash course in wet felting I went home and tried some simple cat toys for my furbabies. The large blue ball is the result of my felting class, the smaller three are my own solo-act of felt making. The three smaller balls have bells inside that rattle more than jingle, but still attract cat-attention.
Nike clearly not getting the point of the photo session.
I can hear rattling behind me, so they seem to be working!
I was looking at some store-bought stretched canvases the other day and decided they would make great shadow box frames. I combined them with some paper and some things I was looking for fames for and ended up with some art for a blank space on my wall.
The three together:
1. Robot clown:
The artwork is an ATC ade by Wulf for the Steampunk Circus Swap. I was inspired by the colours in the piece and used matching scrapbooking papers to cover the frame then aged the piece with a graphite paint and PVA mix. The papers looked too new and the graphite picked out the tears in the paper.
2. Repo Inchies
The artwork here is a set of Repo! The Genetic Opera Inchies made by DeadbathDuckie in the Three Tiny Movie Things Swap. The frame is covered in red and black craft paper I stamped with a text stamp, black ink for the red paper and white ink for the black paper. The backing paper is a red and silver scrapbooking paper and an offcut of the black stamped paper.
3. Federal Department of Odds and Ends
This is an embroidery I did and loved based on the picture book The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan. I was inspired by the book itself which has a background of old, torn book pages. I used old dictionary pages which I aged further with brown acrylic paint.
The procedure was the same for all frames. First I removed the staples and canvas. Then I sanded the frames. The frames are quite rough and have holes and imperfections. If you plan on painting them I would suggest wood fller as there are large holes at the joins. These didn't worry me as I has already planned to cover them. After sanding I applied torn pieces of paper to the frames using PVA glue. I used big pieces first then smaller ones to fill in gaps and ad interest. You may need to cut the pieces slightly so they fit around corners. After the paper had dried I aged the frames with watered down paint. The final step was a coat of spray sealer. To mount the works I cut a piece of thin ceareal-box-weight card board the same size as the frame and stuck the work down with glue stick. The inchies and ATC were attached with glue dots so I could remove them without damage if I wanted to display them differently at a later date. I then used hot-glue to attach the artworks to the frames.
This a project thats been in the works for awhile, steampunk ipod speakers!
They started out life as these:
slightly ugly, fold-up promotional speakers I got free with purchase.
I liked them, but they just weren't for me, plus I've been dying to steampunk something for awhile, so I did. I used a plain gift box with a faux leather covering that I painted brown. The 'pod' speakers were easy to dismantle, they were held in place using a 'clip' system, so I just had to unclip them, cut two holes in the lid using the old speakers and a template and popped the speakers in. I cut a slit in the side of the box to allow the cord to come out, but mostly the cord lives inside the box as contained storage.
action shot!
I used old jewelry as the source for the 'filigree' pieces and gold pen to colour the surround.
Just a simple little project I wanted to share. I etched store-bought glass beads with stickers and etching creme:
Simple but effective. They make nice subtle feature beads for a necklace. A good way to jazz up simple beads. I got all of these on ale at my local craft store.
This is my first weaving project and I'm so happy with it I've been running around in my belt all afternoon demanding people look at it. I wanted to try weaving and discovered this method looked the easiest for a newbie. I even made my own weaving sticks out of dowel. But now pics!
First: my pride, the belt.
And the slightly unflattering action shot!
This cuff was my first project, a trial to make sure I got the method.
I really enjoyed the process, though alot of it was trial and error. Things I learned: 1.Do not make your waving sticks out of tapered chopsticks as you will never get the piece off. 2. sand your sticks as smooth as possible as any rough spots or splinters will cause the wool to snag and be difficult to remove from the sticks. 3. continually check your work for mistakes as the only way to fix a skipped stck is to unpull the work! 4. I found it easiest to push your work down in stages from the bottom of the stcick, working up to the top.
Any other tips or comments are most welcome as I'm looking forward to more projects in the future!
Born out of my Bela Lugosi fan-girl-anti-twiliight-ness and my sisters keen sense of humour: the Team Bela Tee:
Made using the embroidery-hoop-mod-podge-and-tights method. I liked the process and the effect is nice for this project, but I think I prefer traditional stencils.
That being said, I love my new tee and the wonderful in-joke geeky-ness of it! Now I just need to take it for a test drive and wait for any geeky comments that might come my way!
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