Steampunk Charms

Remember this post? Well, here's what I got in return:
I see some of the names are hard to read, so starting in the upper left hand corner, going across and then starting in the lower left hand corner and going across, here's who I got charms from:
Shelly R, Lisa Jacob, Susan Laura, and Shelly R.
Donnalee, Mags, Deanna Cosgrove, and Stacey Bond.

And there's more. Once again starting at the top left hand corner going across, and then starting at the bottom left hand corner and going across:
"Dr Amy" Spraitzer, "Dr Amy" Spraitzer, M.C. Sparks, and "Dr Amy" Spraitzer.
Claudine Criner, Valerie Brinchek, Debbie Warrick, and "Dr Amy" Spraitzer.

Thank you ladies for your lovely charms.

Steampunk Charms

I joined a steampunk charm swap in one of my Yahoo groups. I'm not entirely sure how to make steampunk charms, but I love charms. I was also trying to make them out of stuff I had. Not such a great idea. I understand steampunk to be metal, lace, keys, gears, stuff like that. Unfortunately, I don't have a drill, and I don't have a lot of metal elements. I do have a lot of bullet casings, but like I said no drill. So, here's what I came up with:
The metal tags I got at a garage sale last year. On the other side they say "Crawford County Iowa, a number and 1980 dog tax". The keys were brads that I snipped off the poky parts, glued them onto the tag, and then wrapped them with some coppe wire I found in a clock.
Personally, I think they're great. I asked the hostess if she thought they would work. She replied back "I think they are fine if that's how you would like them to be". That didn't sound too promising to me.

The last picture is my 2nd attempt, but I thought people might not think of them as steampunk, so I went the easy way out. The background is green leather, I just glued some images to them.

Here's my 2nd attempt:

I thought it would be cool to make a steampunk costume. I traced a dress form chipboard piece onto some green leather, freehanding the arms, and cut it out. I then added the black lace on the bottom, and the brass pieces to the arms (they're actually tiny clay beads cut in half). I then added the gold top piece (some packaging), and the 'belt' (some of that is copper colored German trim, some of it is silver trim colored with alcohol inks, and one piece is some copper colored pearls). I think they're really cute, but I was afraid people wouldn't see them as steampunk.

So, now I have 8 of those little dresses. Anyone fancy a trade?

What's on Your Work Space Wednesday

Welcome to What's on your Workspace Wednesday, my 2nd week. I finished my charms the other day (so I'm kinda cheating, but I knew I wouldn't have anything out for today) and found out the bird book isn't due until the 20th, so that will be another week. If you don't know what this is, hop over to Julia's blog.

I had a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do, I started by laying buttons on the charms, because I originally thought I should do something with buttons, because I have a lot, but they covered up the holes, so that didn't work. Then I thought of putting book pages on the green backgrounds, so that's what I decided one. I have a math book, so I started leafing through that and found some problems, cut them out and stuck them on.

For the other side I chose a bunch of nice words. If you can't read them here they are: bravely, confess, confidence, duty, estates, feel, proprietor, purchase, question, relieved, smile, sold, trumpery, value, wages. I tried to find money words because of the problems on the first side.

So that's what I ended up with, I hope the other ladies in the swap like them.

What's on Your Workspace Wednesday

So, I'm editing this to go along with the What's on Your Workspace Wednesday, I've wanted to participate for awhile, but since I haven't been creating for awhile, I didn't have anything to show, well, this week I do (maybe I just want a lot of comments).
I signed up for a couple swaps in a yahoo group, and I've been putting them off because "they're not due until August", I realized the other day, August is less than a week away YIKES!
One of the swaps I'm signed up for is a charm necklace swap, I've done 3 charm swaps already: a couple bracelets and a chipboard house with charms dangling off the bottom. I was thinking I had to make 26 charms for this swap, which is a lot of charms if you think about it. I was reading the rules today and realized it was only 15, that was a huge sigh of relief. I haven't exactly decided what I'm doing yet, but here are my bases:

They are pieces of faux shell that I covered with a mossy colored tissue paper. They had 2 holes in them, they were called spacers. I had started by covering only one hole up, but that looked stupid, so I went back and covered everything both sides with the tissue paper. I'm thinking about layering something else (don't know what) and then adding a varnish to the top of it.
The next swap I signed up for is a chipboard bird book swap. We were sent a book with cover and 5 pages, I have to decorate the 5 pages and send them back, so then I have my own cover with 5 pages from other people. Here's what I have so far:
I covered the pages with old book pages and then sprayed them with my homemade glimmer mists of gold and pink. I did discover while ripping off the excess paper, that the pearl ex powders that I mixed with water to make my sprays come off on my hands, so I'll have to put some modge podge over the top when I'm done. The back side has been painted with a very light green. I'm thinking of stamping some kind of image, but wonder if that will be too busy with the text.

And my last project, is something I just started for fun. Here it is:
It's a tree. I took a 12x12 canvas board, painted it black and then added the same mossy colored tissue paper as on the charms above and then painted it with my new water colors. I don't paint very well, but trees are pretty easy. I don't know what's coming next with this project, but it may be put on the back burner while I finish my swaps, I have about 2 weeks to finish them.

Any suggestions for my projects?

Chunky House Swap

In one of my Yahoo! Groups, I signed up to do a Chunky House and Charm Swap. It entails decorating a chipboard house and creating 5 charms to go with it. Here is my (almost) finished house:
I chose an underwater theme. The background is covered with pieces of ripped book pages and then painted with a mixture of Pearl Emerald Green and Pearl Blue Lumiere paints. After painting it, it took me so long to actually do the rest of the house. I finally sat down on Sunday and started on it. The bottom is covered with small spiral shells someone sent me. I painted seaweed in (I'm guessing, as I don't have the paint here in front of me) Pearl Purple Lumiere paint. The shell and starfish sticker in the corner came from a sticker sheet I bought at Hobby Lobby. The mermaid is a stamped image that someone from my CollageATCs group sent me for our Mythological Creatures swap, I colored it with chalks and added some "shells" to cover her up. The gold fish is actually a clear plastic fish that I painted the back with gold pain. I then added "under the sea" with green and blue glitter glue.

Since deciding on this theme, I envisioned adding a shell on the back that opened up with the information from the swap printed inside. I first painted the back with white craft pain and then added a thinned out mix of the same blue and green paints as the front. In real life it looks a lot more green than blue. I added some sand (from the pail on the back porch for winter sidewalks) to the bottom. I searched Microsoft Word clip art for shells and found the one I used, all I did was print it out, glue it on some blue cardstock that I folded in half. When it's opened I have the name of the swap, the hostess' name, the name of the piece, the date and my name printed in it. I also added the purple startfish button to the corner and a sparkly dolphin sticker on the top.

To me, the back is way too flat, but I'm not sure what else to add to it.

Other than the flatness of the back (which I'm planning on changing), I love this project. I still have to figure out what to do for my five charms, but I'm sure they'll come out just as cute.

It's Christmas time

UGH! I need someone to show me how to use my camera, I've had it almost 3 years and I still can't figure out how to get it to zoom in and focus on things. I hope these pictures are at least clear enough to see what they are.
I am in a swap to make 2 sets of 6 charms that are Christmas themed. I knew right away that I wanted to do a snow man, and mom had some Sculpey clay that she bought a long time ago, so I used some of that. Originally they had red scarves on, but they darkened quite a bit when I baked them. The white also was not so white when it came out of the oven. So, I bought some paint and retouched the white, the carrot noses and put a coat of green over the red scarves. I still need to repaint the eyes and mouth, but otherwise I'm done with them. They are so cute, I had to make an extra one for myself.
I couldn't figure out what I wanted to make for my second set, I considered just making one set, but I like how the bracelets look when they're more full. Then I thought doing an ornament might be nice, but I couldn't figure out what to make it out of. I finally decided to needle felt some, but I didn't have the right colors, the only solid colors of roving I have are orange and a nice summery green, not so nice for Christmas.
I went to a local quilting shop and bought some little bags of red and green for $1.00 each. When I opened them up today, I realized there's a lot in those little bags, they will last awhile. I was going to try and wet felt the ball, but I couldn't figure that out, so I settled on needle felting. I did 3 each of red and green and put tiny circles of the alternating color on each. I think they're very cute as well.

I hope everyone in the swap likes them as well.

I am also in a swap where we decorate 5 chipboard shapes, I received Santa hats, and all I could think about was a regular Santa hat: red with white fur, I knew people wouldn't want that. I thought I'd use some red foil, my friend Loretta gave me, and put white paper on the "furry parts", and then put a vintage Santa image on the red foil and spray some gold webbing over the top. After gluing on the red foil, I had some ripped book pages out for another project and thought those might work for the "fuzzy parts", so I glued them on. The hats look really cute, I'll try and get some pictures up soon. I'm having a hard time finding a Santa image I like though.

Another swap I'm in, I have to decorate a chipboard house and make 5 charms to hang from the bottom of it. I did a birthday ATC for a member in my collageatcs group of a mermaid underwater, and thought that would be perfect. I glued ripped book pages onto the house and painted it with blue and green paints. I'm looking for a mermaid image I like, but I'm going to put some seaweed looking plastic along with some tiny shells I have and some sand. I think it will turn out very cute. I will also get pictures of that up when I get it done.