COMPENDIUM OF CURIOSITIES III CHALLENGE ~ A VISIT FROM OLD ST. NICK

Hello everyone and welcome to a new challenge over at the lovely Linda Ledbetter's Studio L3 website where you will find the latest and greatest Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge!

Thank everyone so much for joining in on the challenges.  The Curiosity Crew absolutely LOVES creating art for you each challenge using Tim Holtz' products and techniques. You are going to be blown away this week!  

We also thank you so much for your always wonderful support and comments on our work. We try so hard to educate, encourage and inspire you.

This week, our challenge takes us into Tim's world of Assemblage Clocks. I absolutely ADORE these little guys.  They are like a shadow box but with so much personality even before you begin! 

I plan on making some vintage holiday clocks for Christmas and Halloween.  I wish I had all of Tim's new Christmas Ideaology but it's not been released yet.  So I dug into my stash of vintage Christmas goodies, cranked up the Christmas music in my studio to get me into the Christmas Spirit and let my imagination take me where it wanted to go.

HO! HO! HO!  This is my finished vintage Assemblage Clock.  I love it! It's so dimensional; looks like a snow globe without the water and the snow flurries!

Since this is NOT a technique challenge, I can share with you the steps and little tips I used in creating this clock.  It has a shiny metallic finish. It measures approximately 5 1/2" across by 7" tall.  So, this is a nice size home decor piece or could lay in the branches of a Christmas tree as a vintage ornament. It has a removable metal back so that you can create your scenes on the interior and then replace the back. It also has a glass front; encapsulating your masterpiece.  The glass can be removed if you prefer your interior to spill out of the circular capsule.

I began by painting a base coat of white Gesso over the entire clock. Some people choose to take the clock all apart but I don't. I covered it with Gesso because the shiny metal surface is sort of slick and the Gesso gives the clock some "tooth" so that paint or stain or whatever medium you are working with will grab to the surface easier.  (Be sure to let whatever you are using dry between each layer.)

I wanted my clock to have a sort of "old world" distressed vintage exterior so I first covered the Gesso with Antiqued Bronze Distress Paint (using a paint brush). 

For my next layer, I brushed on a thin layer of clear Crackle Glaze. When that was dry, I brushed over it with some Martha Stewart Satin Red Paint. The crackle is not real obvious but exactly what I wanted. When the red paint dried, I added highlights of Treasure Gold Renaissance Guilding Wax. It adds such a subtle shimmer and really defines edges and raised areas. I love the antiqued finish that it adds.

Next I decorated the exterior of the clock. If I had had Tim's new Garland Trim, I would have used it around the circle of my clock. But since it has not been released yet, I used some little holly garland I had in my stash.  I gently sprayed Tim's Silver Tinsel Twine with a light mist of Design Master Honey Spray and transformed the shiny silver finish into more of an old world goldish/silver tinsel. I wrapped the garland with Tim's Tinsel Twine and glued it into place around the clock face. Then I hot glued the little vintage Christmas beads I had cut from a vintage beaded garland I had.

The top between the bells features some vintage looking holly leaves and berries, an old Christmas corsage bell that I found at a flea market, a few little berries from a old Christmas pick and some gathered gold tulle.

With my exterior pretty much finished, it was time to start on my Christmas scene.  I had a little vintage Santa that I was going to use in my clock interior and decided to make a snowy scene around him. So, I gathered up some objects and got started!

I began with the smaller of the two trees from Tim's original Woodland Trees release.  These bottle brush trees start off as a cream color.  So, you can transform them into any color you want! I began by spraying the tree with some Peeled Paint Distress Stain that I have put into a Mister Bottle rather than leaving it in the original packaging. Next I added some Pine Needles Distress Stain onto my Non Stick Craft Sheet and twirled the Christmas tree around in the stain, allowing some the edges of the "branches" to be darker. It gives a more natural, blended color for the tree. 

When the stain was dry, I added some White Gesso with a wooden stick and sprinkled it with sparkly glitter while it was still wet to create a freshly fallen snow look.

 
When that dried, I hot glued the little star (from a miniature gold Christmas garland) and gold ball chain as garland to the tree. (I also painted the base white with Gesso so that it would blend into my snowy base that would be inside of the clock). 

Santa needs reindeer, right?  I found these darling little miniature reindeer at a local craft store.  There were four in a package, two smaller and two larger.  They were plain like the one on the left.  I added the little sparkly red and green ribbon and the tiny jingle bell to the ones I used in my snowy scene.  You will see them better in the closeup picture of the finished scene later. (The background paper here is "The Night Before Christmas" from Tim's new Red Merriment Paper Stash. It's all Christmas papers and images.  Love it!!

And speaking of Tim's new Merriment Paper Stash, I used this piece from the 6x6 section of papers to create the background for my scene. Don't you just LOVE the vintage bells?  I distressed the edges with Fired Brick and Vintage Photo Distress Inks.  It is glued onto the back of the metal clock back.  

Here is a close up look at the snowy Christmas scene I created.  Everything is hot glued into place, starting with the "snowy" base created from quilt batting. Then I hot glued my Santa. Next came the smallest reindeer in front of Santa followed by the larger reindeer to the front left. Behind him, I placed my Christmas tree. Finally, I added the larger reindeer behind Santa and to the right on another little puff of snow. I added the dangling snowflakes using a thin piece of silver wire that is hot glued to the top of the clock. They are cute when the freely swing as you move the clock.  Be sure to look through the glass as you are placing your objects in your scene before (and sometimes during ) gluing them in place. It really helps to get the proper placement of each piece. When you are finished with your scene, you simply press the back of the clock into place.

THIS IS IMPORTANT AND WILL HELP YOU WHEN ASSEMBLING YOUR CLOCK!!!

Sometimes the placement of your interior objects can be a bit tricky. Here's why ...

The interior size of the cavity can be deceiving.  The clock face measures 4" across at the widest point.  BUT ... the area across the lower part of the clock, where you will be creating your scene is only about 3" across. The clock cavity is pretty deep so it seems like there would be tons of room to put all sorts of "stuff". But it fills up pretty quickly and you have to remember that you have a back that slides in, taking up about 1/4" from the back space and there is a glass piece across the front of the clock (unless you choose to remove it).

Clean your clock glass before you start putting things into your clock! If you happen to get hot glue on the glass as you are gluing in your objects, it will come off...but try not to get it on the glass in the first place!  I speak from experience!  (smile)

You also need to be careful about the size of the things you use to create your scene.  If they are really big, you won't be able to put very many elements in that 3" width at the base to make for a cute little scene. The curvature of the base of the clock can also come into play.  Just some things to consider as you are creating your interior.

As a finishing touch, I added the "Merry Christmas" tag to my clock.  This was created using the script stamp from Tim's last year's Christmas stamp release, and one of my favorites, Mini Holidays 5. It is gold embossed on a brick red cardstock. I glued it onto a piece of cardstock. The back side of the tag is a red and white strip that was the back side of the vintage bells paper I used on my clock background. I cut out the size of the tag I wanted, rounded the two outter edges using a Crop A Dile Chomper 1/4" corner rounder and then punched a hole in the top to add the gold ribbon. I hot glued the two edges together and hot glued it in place at the top of my clock.

So there it is ... my finished vintage Christmas clock. I decorate A LOT for Christmas and I always like to create something new every year. This will definitely be a fun addition! 

I will probably make another one of these and instead of a Christmas scene, I think I will only have little a snow with a Christmas tree and maybe a little reindeer to the left of the foreground and picture of all of my grandchildren together as the background. Add "2014" to the back side of the "Merry Christmas" tag and use it as a large ornament on my Grand Childrens' Vintage Christmas tree.  I make an ornament every year for a vintage themed tree that is in my entry hall dedicated to my Grandchildren. This would be too large to hang at the edge of a branch, but it would be really cute nestled in some branches!

I hope that this tutorial has given you some ideas and some good tips as you go forward to create you own Assemblage Clock.  Don't be afraid to try one. They are absolutely DARLING and so much fun to make!  Just be mindful of how deceiving the space in the interior can be as you are designing your scene.

After you've created your clock, be sure to share it will all of us at the Compendium of Curiosities Challenge. It is such a fun community of Tim Holtz' lovers who share a passion for his techniques and products. It is so much fun to see everyone's amazing art that they post each challenge. Beautiful work!

Our sponsor for this challenge is the lovely Linda Coughlin of The Funkie Junkie Boutique.  She is generously donating a $25.00 gift certificate!! Thank you Linda!!!

And... we also have a bountiful prize package from a mountain of "goodies" that Tim and Mario have so graciously donated to the Compendium of Curiosities III Challenge to distribute each challenge. Thanks so them for their always continuing support and generosity!

I can't wait to see your clocks!!!