An Altered Key

This month's challenge over on Flickr's GAS MAMMA (group for altered art swaps)is to alter a key with romance as a theme.

Not being the most imaginative of people I couldn't think of how to effectively alter a key - a key's a key right! In the end I decided to make a little piece of artwork - with the key as the focal point - and used a mini canvas measuring just 2 1/2" x 3".

I love the shape of the old key I used and it was very rusty to begin with so I just enhanced it a little with some metallic gold rub on and added two silver heart shaped gems at the top. I entwined some gold beading around it and through some lace too which is attached to the canvas by a heart shape brad. The canvas itself I painted with acrylic, coloured the edges with more of the gold metallic rub on - coated the whole thing with beeswax and adhered some music score with more of the wax (it's an extract from 'Get me to the church on time' from My Fair Lady) A bit of lace top and bottom and a couple of flowers to finish.

Seeing as I was at a loss as to what to do for this challenge, I'm really pleased with the end result.

Altered Tin - 'Sea Treasures'

This month's challenge over on the GAS Flickr group (that is, group for altered art swaps)is to alter a tin using the sea as a theme.

For some reason altering a tin has never appealed to me - but nevertheless I bought a little tin of mints from Aldi and placed it at the back of my craft desk and kept looking over at it hoping inspiration would come! (the mints inside disappeared very quickly - don't know where they went to!!!!!)

As soon as some altered tins started appearing in the photostream of the GAS group I felt suitably inspired as there are some gorgeous ones in there.

This is what I did with the outside:
~ coated with some acrylic paint as a base
~ once dry, coloured it with alcohol inks (blues and greens)
~ coloured a piece of stampbord with brusho
~ added some printed text 'Follow the river and you will find the sea'
~ Finished off with some Ranger's Glossy Accents
~ Stuck it to the lid with some E6000 glue (first attaching some fabric and glitter)

This is what I did with the inside - much more interesting!
~ Cut a piece of silver self adhesive tape and free hand embossed it before covering
the whole of the inside with it.
~ coloured the tape with alcohol inks
~ placed in the bottom of the deep side of the tin six bright blue glass nuggets
~ poured in over the top of the glass nuggets some Anita's 3-D clear gloss finish
(basically the same stuff as Ranger's Glossy Accents, but a bit less expensive)
~ dropped in some other 'sea treasures' such as shiny beads, sequins and a couple
of mosaic fragments - not forgetting some more glitter flakes.
~ dropped in a piece of netting and a sea shell

I love the effect of the glass nuggets under the glaze and the alcohol ink colours on the bottom - I don't think the photo shows it off very well but I'm really pleased with the end result.

Think I may go and buy some more mints now - burp!!!!!!!!!!!

Scrabble Charms

I've been busy making charms from old scrabble tiles this week as that's this month's project over on GAS MAMMA on Flickr (GAS meaning group for altered art swaps).

Last month I was lucky enough to get drawn with Pattie and received her beautiful altered CD which you can see here.

As I said above, this month's project (which co-incidentially was chosen by Pattie) was to alter some scrabble tiles into charms and the theme was flowers. Although we have a set of scrabble I didn't want to attack that as we do play it sometimes (although I can't remember when the last time was!) so I bought a very old 'scrabble for juniors' set at a car boot sale last Saturday. I didn't realise until I got it home though that all the tiles were made from cardboard and not plastic as I was expecting - doh! However, by glueing two together they become quite sturdy and good for altering.

I used K & Co scrapbook papers for the flower images and sealed them with UTEE, apart from the middle set which I edged with UTEE from the melting pot, then sealed with Anita's 3D Clear Gloss Finish. To some I added tiny seed beads and gems. The best bit is finishing them off with some dangling beads. I'm pleased with how they've turned out and hope the receipients will like them also.

I'm going to make some more - and two will become earrings for my sister, Kelly who when she saw the charms today said they looked just like earrings and asked me to make her some! That really was a great compliment and it will be a pleasure to make them for her.

(The photos show the front side (top) and the back - closer up pictures are on my Flickr photostream - see link at the side).