'The Dark Side'

Steampunk Altered Full Size Dress Form, 

Altered Top Hat & Altered Steampunk Goggles

OMG everybody this was my most ambitious and most fun project to date! I really wanted a new full size lamp for my home but just could not find one that I liked that I wanted to alter so I had a great idea to make something that wasnt a lamp, into a lamp!

It was quite some undertaking! I started out with this (which I purchased from ebay and was not quite identical to the picture shown but very close)

I really wanted to do a Steampunk style and as Graphic 45's new steampunk paper is a way off being released and I am impatient I decided to purchase the older (but amazing) Steampunk Debuntante paper line instead. 

This was to be the basis and inspiration for my project. Once I got the paper and held it up to the light i realised quite how opaque it was - this meant if I wanted a practical lamp I had to come up with another idea to add to the paper line. I wanted a lamp that was beautiful but also functional!

So I checked as Ikea what there paper lamp shades were made from (as I know they are fire retardant and let the light through and discovered that they were made of rice paper. So I purchased some. I needed to make the rice paper tie in with the brown tones of the graphic 45 paper so before doing anything further I tea dyed it. soaking the paper in a sink full of hot water and approximately 10 tea bags for 4 hours. once it was dry it had the brown tone that i wanted. I then wanted the rice paper to 'tie in' more with the design paper so I got out my stamps. I used stamps by Papermania, Crafty Expressiosns, Crafty individuals and paper artsy with Stazon inks in Black, teal blue & saddle brown to stamp randomly all over the rice paper.

I used fabritac to adhere all the design paper and rice paper to each section of the dress form, one section at a time - it was very time consuming but so very worth it! In the spaces where the armholes would have been I used a paper punk to punch out butterfly shapes at random to let the light through.

Once all the paper was adhered it was time to come up with an idea for the 'lamp' part. I had the initial idea but I cant take credit for the making of the actual lamp fitting as that has to go to my husband! He took a whole day to do it but did a great job!

Before embellishing the dress form any futher I went on to my 'lamp shade' and started out with this (purchased again from ebay) 

Of course me being me I couldnt just leave it like that! so i purchased some Steampunk Chipboard Goggles from Tando Creative (http://tando-creative-stockists.blogspot.co.uk/) . I went about assembling and altering the goggles first deciding that i would like to have them on the front of the hat. I altered the sides of the googles with the design paper and added old watch parts to the outside frames. I them made a piece for the front with wooden cogs painted to look like metal and an art-i-cake charm. 

As much as I loved the top hat idea I really wanted it to be more 'steampunk' and that meant more 'metal' so my huband and I came up with the idea of cutting the top apart and inserting a metal chicken wire into the hat which would also show the light through to become a 'lamp shade'.  My husband vut the metal a little on the short side for me as I really wanted to 'corset lace' up the back of the hat.

Still not thinking that this was 'metallic' enough I used a metal foil technique that I have used previously - learnt from RachO113 on Youtube to cover the entire hat. Once the hat was covered in metal foil pieces I used viva decor black modelling creme to texture the entire hat. once completely dry I rubbed over the whole thing with viva decor inka gold in platinum and rub n buff in teal. I then adhered a metal 'D ring' trim from my stash all around the sides of the hat to hand chain from. I them embellished the hat.

So it was now back to the dress form and I wanted to mix steampunk with girly grunge so I decided to embellish mainly in 2 sections. I started by fussy cutting some images from the paper line and popping them up on pop dots to have those particular pieces raised. Once I had done this I decided that the cream / white colouring really wasn't doing it for me so I rubbed stazon ink in saddle brown and teal blue in random places all over the wire frame. I them rubbed over that in inka gold graphite to tone it back to black / grey. I then added texture base to the base pole and bottom to create raised areas and rubbed these over with the inka gold too. I really liked the way this came out.

I did one cluster of embellishments in a Girly Steampunk style with lots and lots of embellishments I used lots of things from my stash as well as a lot of things from CraftSupplies1 on etsy (http://www.etsy.com/shop/Craftsupplies1) . They are in the US and I was amazed at how fast my purchase was shipped and arrived here in the UK. If you were ever in any doubt about ordering from them, the delivery is fast, the prices are very very reasonable and the store owner could not be more helpful or accommodating - I highly recommend it. Then I needed something for the front centre unpapered gap. I decided to stick a large skull charm from my stash in the centre and some Prima resin wings which I altered in the same way as the hat. From there I decided I needed more metal so I set about altering lots of metal filigrees from my stash as well as some Prima vintage trinkets and stuck them as a 'band' from the centre and over one side.

Once this was done I decided to add a little to the shoulders and fussy cut some flowers from the paper line for one side and added a very striking feather trim around the arm hole on the other.

So, I have taken a serious amount of photos from all angles and sides to try and show the tons and tons of details, here it is :)

Please let me know what you think and do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions on what I did or products used. This was a huge project and I have tried my very best to explain as much as I can in as little space as I can - but may have missed things in trying to do so!

This lamp now has pride of place in my home and I hope you like it as much as I do

XOXO Kel

Sneak Peek!

I have been working really hard here altering 3 (maybe 4 if it works - but it might not) things to make them into one rather large piece! I am very excited about it.

Here's a sneaky peek of where I am at

XOXO Kel

Small Project Share

I got this little box free recently at a boot fair and decided I would like to alter it! As it was free I decided I would like to alter is with things / scraps / left overs that I have. so I pulled out my left over Prima Almanac Paper :). This was a very qyuick simple project made in an hour or so.

I started by painting the whole thing with black gesso. I then added black texture cream by Viva decor to the sides and made sure that there were some raised areas to give it some texure. I added two pieces of almanac paper to top of the box top torn slightly to one side. Once the texture was dry I ripped some of the designer paper into pieces, edged it with 'black soot' distress ink and adhered it in random places around the lip of the lid. I then covered the sides of the box and the inside of the box with design paper. I used mod podge for this and sealed the inside papers by coating over the top in mod podge as well.

 I did not have enough almanac paper left to cover the whole inside so I used some of the Prima Lyric collection and distressed all the edges with 'black soot' distress ink. I then rubbed the raised areas if the texture paste as the side with Viva decor Inka Gold in 'Graphite' to give the raised areas some shimmer and definition. 

To decorate the top I decided that as I have not yet attempted a 'layout' I would make the top a first layout attempt  I used a different piece of the almanac paper to the centre and a cute picture of one of my daughters and worked around those. I fussy cut some pieces from the paper line, a WOC flower, an IAR flower & a handmade rolled rose. I used textured trims from my stash (bought from ebay) layered one over the top of the other and added a prima ruler / tape measure trim to one side. I cut a rosette from some rosette trim, and sprayed it with Lindy's 'Toto Tornado Black' and adhered it to the box with a fussy cut image to the centre. The rest of the embellishments are from my stash.

I hope you like it

XOXO Kel