The Horologium

This is the Horologium.
Ever seen the movie Time Bandits?
I haven't worked out why yet, but I was thinking a lot about that movie whilst making this and this is what came out of that.
Maybe it's because the props were gorgeous and full of odd details and functions.
Horologium is the Latin word for clock, which seems kind of Time Bandits-ish. And this clock is pretty fancy and has an air of consciousness about it, so I felt it needed a smart name.
Clocks have moving parts, so it's a natural progression of fanciful thought to think they are intelligent. Lots of stories out there about clocks.
And I like making objects that appear to be a little bit (or a lot) sentient.

Here she is with her little traveling eye at the foot of the clock. She gets around.

Here is where I began..
I assembled and gessoed the inside of the clock. I did not glue the facade on-that comes later.

I made a template to build my stairs, then used it on some scrap thin chipboard and then cut them out. I actually made four staircases, but you can't really see the one behind the clock unless you look closely.

To assemble the stairs, I cut a piece of chipboard about 1/4 in wide and used that as the underside of the stairway. I glued both of the stair jacks (the zig zag bits) to either side of the chipboard making sure as best I could, that they were even with each other and straight.

I cut pieces of scrapbook paper approx. 1/4 in wide and glued them to the riser part of the stairs. I trimmed them to fit with a pair of scissors. After they dried, i did the treads and again, cut them with a pair of scissors to fit.

After they all dried, I dry-fitted the stairs into the clock and made adjustments as needed to get a good fit. I did not glue the stairs in until I had the background of the inside of the clock complete.
I decided that I wanted a piece on the inside of the clock that repeated the shape of the arched top of the clock, so i drew a template and cut one out of chipboard.

I painted it and put some lifts on the back to make it stand out a bit from the back. My intention was to put one of the staircases behind it to make it look deeper. After some fiddling around, I realized that the third course of stairs that need to fit behind the arch was too wide, so I ended up cutting the underside in half in order to get all the pieces to fit into the clock. You can see in the picture below that the third course (the one on the top) is much narrower than the other two.

Everything got a coat of brown paint and some detailing with gold paint, was dry-fitted into the clock once again and set aside.

I cut the paper for the facade of the clock using the piece as a template.

I fitted and then glued a piece of a rice paper image to the inside sections of the clock.

The paper I used throughout the piece, including the rice paper is from Ciao Bella's Codex Leonardo.

I gave it a good coating of matte medium, let it dry and began arranging some clock parts over the paper for more detail, dry-fitting my arch and staircases to make sure I wasn't interfering with the space I needed in the final gluing.

I used a lot of metal stampings in this piece. I decided to change the detailing on the stairs, ended up repainting them and adding little tiny flowers on the jacks. I like it!

After adding the deatils I wanted to the inside of the clock, i finally glued in the stairs and glued the facade on. I painted and added lots of details, like Dresden trim and the little birdcage on the right.

Little flower lanterns made from bead caps and wire,

 

lots of gold dots,

And hand painted details.

Thank you for stopping by!

SUPPLIES:
Eleven inch Grandfather Clock
Miniature Bookplates Shape Set
Simple House Ornament
Faux Metal Number Plates

Additional supplies:
From Alpha Stamps:
Black Zig Zag Dresden Borders
Codex Leonardo 12x12 Paper Pad
A lot of the bead caps and metal findings I also got from Alpha Stamps HERE
and HERE

Acrylic Paint
Matte Medium (I use Liquitex)
Wire

NOTE: The piece with the eye on it is a Simple House Ornament with about an inch and a half cut off the bottom and a tiny wooden block glued on the back!

Honeydukes Reimagined

I originally planned on turning one of the GSL Corner Room Boxes into a Honeydukes candy shop but changed my mind when I saw the Rotating 4 Scene Room Box. (Alpha stamps) After making a candy themed clock and Honeydukes display I realized I had way too many fun candy shop ideas to fit into a single room. Here's what I came up with.

The room box has a base, two interlocking pieces that make up the walls of the rooms, an 'X' shaped piece that goes at the top and four rectangular pieces that fit on the wall edges. It also comes with a lazy susan turntable to spin it. I painted all of the surfaces that weren't going to be papered with a base coat of gesso then a cream colored acrylic paint.  The piece was assembled using tacky glue.

I chose the black and cream Checkers paper from Graphic 45's Mother Goose collection for all of the room's floors. 

The papers I used for the walls were Recollections Light Pink Stripes, Bo Bunny The Avenues, Imaginisce Hey Foxy and a pink and white Random Dot from Paper Studio. 

The baseboards were made from tongue depressors. I used cutters to get them to size. A sanding block took the rough edges off. They were then painted cream and glued into place. 

I used Super Glue to adhere the turntable to the bottom before I started the decorating process.

The Honeydukes display case was placed into the pink striped room. I made a small wall shelf from one of the Mini Shadowbox Set boxes. I painted it to match the display case and filled it with jars of poly clay cane slices and some giant peppermint lollipops made from glass beads and wire. 

The clock was given it's own space that I decorated with Ella & Viv candy heart papers from their Candy Land Tray set into resin frames. The pink pots are holding snippets of plastic flowers. 

I knew I wanted to have a quiet space for the students to do their homework. That's the GSL Table & 2 Chairs 1:12 with a scrap of felt as seat cushions. I glued a hook on the wall for a student's owl cage. The 'Shhh' sign is made from free clip art I found online. 

 The table has a tea pot, two cups, a jar of candy (of course) and two miniature books. 

The last room was inspired by many of the places I took my girls when they were little. Lots of places that kids hang out have birthday party celebration rooms so I added one at my version of Honeydukes. The presents are made from papered wooden blocks and tiny bows, the cake is made of polymer clay, the heart balloons are made from acrylic vase filler hearts glued onto floral wire. The banner was printed using a Harry Potter font and glued onto baker's twine, held in place by heart shaped buttons.

I hope you were transported along with me, thanks for stopping by!

Gypsy Soul Items Used

Rotating 4 Scene Room Box

Grandfather Clock 1:12

Round Table & 2 Chairs 1 to 12

Mini ShadowboxSet

Small Trinket Shelf  Stand (coming soon)

Other Items Used

Tacky glue

Super Glue

Gesso

Acrylic paint

Tongue depressors

Recollections Light Pink Stripes

Bo Bunny The Avenues

Imaginisce Hey Foxy 

Pink and white Random Dot from Paper Studio

Ella & Viv Candy Land Tray

Resin Frames

Wooden blocks

Miniature bows

Vase filler hearts

White floral wire

Miniature bottles

Polymer clay

Polymer clay canes

Printed labels

Miniatures

Candy Shop Clock

I have a miniature Honeydukes candy shop in mind and decided a clock would be a perfect addition. I used the awesome GSL Grandfather Clock 1:12.

 Here are the clock's elements all laid out with the top, bottom and shelf pieces set into place. 

 Before I glued anything together, I used a few of the non-rectangular elements as a pattern pieces. I selected BoBunny's Double Dot Vintage for this project. I've had this broken wristwatch face in my stash for a long time and it ended up being perfect for this project.

I started by gluing all of the horizontal elements in place. 

Then came the sides. It's starting to look like a clock!

There's a drawer that fits into the bottom section but I wanted that space open and decided to leave it out. Since it's going into a candy shop, I used candy themed papers. The jelly beans are from Ella & Viv's Candy Tinker Tray and the sprinkles paper is from DCWV's Snack Stack.

I covered the watch face's logo by gluing a tiny polymer clay nail art flower over it. In order to get the timepiece set into the clock's case at the perfect depth, I glued some scrap wood from my stash behind it.

Now to assemble a few candy jars to display inside the case. They are filled with polymer clay stick candy and cane slices and layered microbeads. The lids are made by gluing pearlized straight pins inside metal beads with a dot of E6000. Once the glue was dried, the pin shank was snipped off with wire cutters. 

 I think this will look great in my miniature Honeydukes shop. Thanks for stopping by!

 

Gypsy Soul Laser Items Used

Grandfather Clock 1:12

Other Items Used

Tacky glue

BoBunny Double Dot Vintage paper

DCWV Snack Stack paper

Ella & Viv's Candy Tinker Tray paper

Wristwatch face

Miniature jars

Poly clay nail art canes

Microbeads

Beads

Pearlized straight pins

A Timeless Grandfather Clock

This month for gslcuts.com I've created a 'timeless clock' with Gypsy Soul's Grandfather Clock.

I've used a pretty floral scrapbook paper to cover my clock. Just one sheet will do the trick. The little drawer at the bottom, and interior of the clock, have been lined with a page from an old, discarded book.

The top section of the clock does not contain a time piece (although you certainly could add one), instead being home to a nest of little eggs.

The top has been decorated with moss, flowers, an acorn and some wee mushrooms.

Inside, a butterfly garden, with moss, paper roses and pretty flying things.

This particular clock measures 11" tall. It's a nice with a goodly amount of space to play with inside for creating a little scene or diorama.

If you're interested in making your own, I have a video of the construction of this piece HERE.

And here is your supply list:

Grandfather Clock 11 Inch
(psst, there is also a smaller 1:12 scale version)

Sheet moss
Floral scrapbook paper
Paper Roses
Plastic Eggs
Flat back pearls
Twig Vine Garland
Red Mushrooms on Wires
English Fairy Garden Collage Sheet
Mini Floral Dresden Borders - Antique Gold
Narrow Gold Fleur Dresden Borders*
Pronged Metal Handles*