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Friday, February 28, 2014

Hanging Snowflake Altered Art. . . .



I love to make use of items that I’d normally throw out and the main components of this project contain exactly that.

Hopefully you saw my two previous projects using the Globecraft & Piccolo Bejeweled Snowflakes accents set, if you need a refresher you can find them here (Snowflake Votive) & here (Happy Winter Card).  For this project, I used the little snowflakes that are in the set and my "stencil" that I made and used for the Happy Winter Card.  There are 6 adorable snowflakes, measuring about 3/4", that I had left in the set, so I used them up!  

Before I get into the tutorial, let me tell you about the products I used:
Small Snowflakes from Bejeweled Snowflakes   
Stencil I used in making the Happy Winter Card (from Bejeweled Snowflakes  
Frame, 7” x 7” square
White Gesso
Distress Paint in Stormy Sky
Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue
Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black
Fishing Line (or other clear string material)
Oval Word Charms
Piece of White cardstock
Sentiment “Warm Winter Wishes” by Quietfire Design 

I know it seems like a daunting amount of stuff but most of it you use only once.  First thing I did was work on the snowflakes.  I had originally wanted to have one side glitter and one side embossing enamel but that didn’t work out very well. 
I know I could of made this work, but I didn't really like the glitter
The detail in the flakes was a wee bit too defined for the glitter I had so I switched to embossing both sides.  
These are only embossed once - like my fingerprint?
I embossed both sides about 3 times (don’t forget to roll your jar of embossing enamel – it blends all the granules and colors perfectly!), which was tricky because each time I embossed a side the other side grew hot as well and would end up either slipping off or making a finish that I didn’t like.  My solution was to go slower and use a lighter touch with my heat gun; I also wonder if the fact that I have a Weller Heat Gun which is actually made for industrial applications may have caused the powder on the other side to keep reheating so much. When I find my regular crafty heat gun, I will do an experiment and see if the heat was too hot.

Once the flakes were embossed to my liking I set them aside to completely cool.  At this point, I wasn’t sure how I was going to hang them but I had a very vivid picture in my mind of how I wanted the assemblage to look – I thought about threading fishing line through each flake, of tying each flake to cord, using fibers, and a few other ideas.  The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of having the flakes hang invisibly – so I used fishing line! 
In the picture, you can barely see the fishing line stretched across one of my homemade art boards (cardboard covered with wax paper) and held in place with painters tape.  I then glued each snowflake to the line with E6000.  I made sure I used plenty of line and I matched up the snowflakes so they would all be in about the same place.  I let them dry overnight.


Way too dark!
I went to work on what I think is the focal point of the assemblage, the “stencil” I made from the Bejeweled Snowflakes set – the stencil is actually made out of the waste leftover after all the items are punched out.  This is the third project I am getting out of just one set.  When I made the Happy Winter Card, I had spritzed the stencil with Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue to make the image on the card.  The stencil was really saturated with the spray ink and much darker than what I wanted for this project so I painted some gesso over the London Blue and got the perfect, icy baby blue color I wanted.  Then to give the stencil a bit more stability I painted over it with Glasstique Gloss FinishingGlaze.
Perfect!!!
The frame that I used came from a picture bought at the Dollar Store and had gotten ruined – and the frame was originally black. So I gessoed over the black, twice to be sure it was covered completely and then colored it with Distress Paint in Stormy Sky using a paint brush dipped right into the bottle.  I finished it off with a few light spritz of Dylusions Spray Ink in London Blue, let it dry a few seconds and swiped it very lightly with a baby wipe. 

I had already stamped the sentiment on a piece of white cardstock using Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black; all I need to do was trim it up a bit and it was ready to go!


All the pieces ready to be assembled!
Now that all the pieces were done the fun part – putting it together!  This is when I discovered my fishing line refused to stay straight and kept curling up on me.  No fear! I dug into my charms stash and decided that these oval word charms would fit the bill nicely.  I attached one to the bottom of each snowflake line and they worked like a charm (pun intended), in addition to tying the fishing line, I also added a dab of E6000 to each knot.  Now that my curling issue was fixed, I moved on to getting the stencil ready to be attached to the frame.  First thing I did was poke 3 holes into the stencil and thread the fishing line with the snowflakes through the holes, being careful to make sure all the lines were even with each other, then I flipped the stencil over and used E6000 to glue to fishing line to the back so the rows of flakes would stay put.  I let that dry overnight.
The finishing touches are easy – I glued the stencil to the inside of the frame & then attached the sentiment.  It took a bit of thinking and problem solving but I think this is an awesome winter decoration.  I hope you had as much fun reading about it as I had making it!
Another view
Next week I officially start spring, regardless if the weather cooperates or not.
Thanks for reading and I hope you & yours have a fabulous week!
Christi

I am entering my creation in the following challenges:
Love to Create Challenge  #104 Anything Goes!
My Craft Creations  Anything Goes
All Crafts Challenge Feb/March  Anything Goes
Tuesday Throwdown  Anything Goes
Simply Create Too Anything Goes 
Altered Eclectics Anything Goes 
Artful Times #50 Anything Goes

10 comments:

  1. Love the idea of using fishing line to fasten your snowflakes to the stencil.

    Sorry we can't include you in our prize at Artful Times as one of our rules is that entries can only be in 5 challenges and yours is in 7

    Chrissie x

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    1. Thank you Chrissie - so sorry, I must have missed that in the rules :)

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  2. Beautiful decoration, love all the detail in the snowflakes, they were certainly worth the added effort! ~Diane

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    1. Thank you Diane - you are so sweet!! I really had fun making this and I actually had this idea before the other two :) Stay warm! Christi

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  3. Christi: Your altered art piece is beautiful!! . Glad you joined our "Use Your Stash Challenge #56" and hope you enter in all our Simply Create Too upcoming challenges also.

    Diane
    Simply Create Too Design Team Member
    http://SimplyCreateToo.blogspot.com
    http://DianesDigitalDesigns.blogspot.com

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  4. Beautiful altered art project. Thank you for playing along with us at Altered Eclectics Challenge.

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  5. fabulous creation hun love it it is really lovely - ty so much for playing along at My All Crafts Challenge and wishing you the very best of luck x

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  6. Very nicely put together :) and thank you for sharing with us at Artful Times
    Von x☺x

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  7. Cool project! Thank you for joining our Anything Goes Challenge over at Love to Create this week.
    Ruza, LTC Admin/Designer
    Ruza's Craft Corner

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  8. As Chrissie pointed out we cannot include you for the prize but I was very interested to read about your double embossing. Good for you, I have never had success with it myself. Well done!
    Hugs, Neet, Artful Times xx

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Thank you so much for your comments! I read each and every one :)