Saturday, January 31, 2009

Clocks x3

*****Our give-away is still open! See post below*****

In January it seems like we focus a lot on time . We wonder where the previous year went. We buy new calendars. We make goals on how we're going to spend our time: more time with family, more time crafting...

With this in mind, we thought it'd be fun to all make clocks for our one craft-three ways post this month. (For another clock idea, check out this post by Anisa!) Here they are:

Left to right, largest to smallest are Cami, Anisa, Angie.

Anisa's is a painted wood circle and the lovely paper is velvet-embossed.

Angie's is a wooden frame painted, embellished with cardstock designs cut using the Cricut and patterned paper behind the clock hands.

As for mine, I have a funny story to tell.

Crafts don't always go the way we want them to. Everything was going well with my clock. I painted a wooden circle with the paint I'd just used on my walls. The hands I'd made looked good after I'd embossed them with Ultra-Thick Embossing Enamel. I'd cut perfect circles out of scrapbook paper and thought I'd attach them with Mod-Podge. Things went horribly wrong as the cardstock started to warp and it began getting smeared, very obviously, over my careful paint job (during which I ruined a pair of jeans and almost ruined a sweater. Lesson: wear paint clothes while using paint!). I quickly removed the cardstock (my patterned paper survived), cut another circle of the same size and used a different adhesive. Unfortunately, Mod-Podge soaks into paper quickly and it had enlarged my original circle which in turn left a tacky paper-fuzz ring on the wood and it could not be removed or covered up with the original circle.

At this point it was time to go to Anisa's house so that we could get the clocks photographed together, so I thought I'd figure it out later, edit my finished clock into the photo for today's post. I had a lot of fix-it ideas, but favored the idea of placing beads all around the cardstock to cover up the mess Mod-Podged mess. There are no brown tube beads at my local craft store so I looked around some more. I got the idea to use embossing powder to cover up the mess. I bought it and started heat embossing around my cardstock circle. The embossing wasn't great, but I noticed another problem that my heat gun was causing. The acrylic wall paint was beginning to bubble and the Mod-Podge was turning an aged and dirty yellow color. Right now, my clock is gross. My good-looking clock hands curled after I left the clock out in the cold garage for a few hours and the paint on the wood is beyond help. I am literally going to have to start all over and I will, right after I go buy sand paper... :(

1 comment:

Sarah said...

I love this idea! I just wanted to let you know that I've linked to your idea on my blog, Create Studio! Thanks for the inspiration!

-Sarah from Create Studio
www.createstudio.blogspot.com