Black Hole Art Studio: Clowning Around with Sin City Stamps Blog Hop

Hello everyone. I am so glad you decided to stop by and join us. The Sin City Stamps Design Team is having a blog hop, and you are invited. Sin City Stamps is sponsoring our blog hop and generously awarding a $10 gift certificate from each blog, and one grand prize winner from The Sin City Stamps blog. Yes, you heard me correctly...from each blog. That is a lot of chances to win. All you have to do is visit each blog and leave a comment, and like Sin City Stamps Facebook page. One winner will be chosen randomly from each blog from those comments. You have until Friday, June 14, to enter. Winners will be announced on the Sin City Stamps blog on Sunday, June 16, so please check back to see if you are a winner. In the meantime, please sit back and enjoy what the team has created for you today. A complete list of the blogs is posted below to help you follow along.

My project is a circus tent shadowbox, Under the Big Top. I am so excited to share this with you today. I know I can be easily entertained, but I really like how my project turned out. There is a huge bottle of laughter waiting inside, and it looks like the children are a bit scared to enter because of the giant box clown on wheels rolling along to greet them as they enter. Then, there is the clown walking on the high wire. He looks a bit hesitant to me. Oh yes, here come some more circus goers via air balloon, while the bird watches on.

Supplies Used:

Sin City Stamps Steampunk Circus
Graphic 45 LeCirque Collection (Magnifique, Circus Parade, Bohemian Floral)
Kraft Cardstock (Paper Studio)
Ivory Cardstock (Neenah)
Distress Inks (Fired Brick, Frayed Burlap)
Twinkling H2O's (Blushing Caramel, Irish Mist, Rich Cocoa, Cranberry, Sunflower, Pink Azalea, Olive Vine, Snap Dragon, Orange Peel, Ocean Wave, Moss Green, Hot Cinnamon, Hunter Grey)
Colored Pencils (White Stabilo pencil, Lyra Scarlet Lake)
Viva Decor Pearl Pens (Gold, Bronze, Black, Lilac, Amber)
Memento Ink Pad (Tuxedo Black)
FolkArt acrylic paint (Orange, Engine Red)
Ceramcoat acrylic paint (Spice Tan)
Sakura 3D Crystal Lacquer
Silhouette machine
Silhouette images (Carousel, Circus Tent, Circus Sign)
Stampin' Up small oval punch
5-1/2" x 8-1/2" Wooden box (Dollar Tree)
Glue n' Seal Matte (Ranger)
20 gauge black wire (Michaels)
Large black beads (Explorer)
Silver wire spring-coiled bead (Hobby Lobby)
Metal gears (Bead Landing, Tim Holtz)
Vintage light bulbs (Tim Holtz)
Natural twine
Wobble springs

Directions:

1. Die cut two carousel tops from kraft CS, glue together for added strength. (Resize your images, as needed, to fit the box).
2. Die cut four stripe pieces from Circus Parade and one flag piece, glue on top of kraft CS.
3. Die cut flag pole portion, ink with frayed burlap, glue to top over flag piece. Set aside.

4. Die cut circus sign from Magnifique and Bohemian Floral, layer pieces together, as shown.

5. Color and punch out 1923 stamped image and adhere both 1923 and circus sign with foam dots to carousel top. Set aside.

6. Die cut bottom portion of circus tent from Circus Parade and Bohemian Floral. Glue both pieces together.

7. Cut tent into thirds, as shown. Remove center portion and save for another project.

8. Curl both tent sides, as shown, and glue at the top of the curl. This portion will be underneath the circus "big top" when completed.

9. Add clips to each edge of tent, as shown, and wrap with natural twine. Put a dab of matte glue on twine to keep it from untying. Set aside to dry.

10. Stamp images onto ivory CS with black ink.

11. Color images with Twinkling H2Os. After the images dry, fussy cut each one.

12. Add 3D crystal lacquer to the bottle of laughter image, and decorate the balloon with Viva Decor paint pens, as shown. Set images aside.

13. While glue and paint are drying, let's work on the box. Sand wooden box. Paint top edges to match Magnifique paper with blended mixture of orange, engine red, and spice tan acrylic paints.

14. Cover inside edges and inside bottom of box with Magnifique paper.

15. Cover outside edges with Circus Parade (stripe).

16. Measure 3" down from top of box, and insert two screw eyes on opposite sides, then attach wire through both screw eyes, as shown.

17. Attach walking clown onto wire. I put glossy accents on his feet only and adhered him. I found that this worked really well.

18. Before continuing on, I glued the tent sides to the top sides of the box, as shown in the previous photos. Then I attached the "big top" (carousel top) over the tent sides and glued it down, bowing the big top outward and attaching it only to the tent sides.
19. Attach balloon with a spring-coiled wire bead beneath it. Guess what? It looks like it is floating and it wobbles, too!

20. Attach bird to a large metal gear and glue to opposite side of big top.

21. I adhered the laughter bottle inside the box, lower left, and put glue only on the children's feet to adhere them directly to the bottom edge of the box.

22. Glue three vintage light bulbs to top inside of box, as shown. I also glued the stamped and painted word "Steampunk" on the back of the box, above the words "Le Cirque". I also added some dots of VivaDecor gold paint pen around the circus sign.

23. Attach a couple of metal gears to front of box clown, and a wobble spring to the back of him. Then I added many layers of foam to the spring to lift him off of the back, in front of the high wire, but still allowing him to wobble.

Thanks to my good friend and co-design team member, Pam Bray, I added some huge black beads to the bottom of my box as feet. I love it. Thanks for the suggestion, Pam.

I really enjoyed making this for you. It brought back many wonderful childhood memories for me. I hope I have been able to do the same for you.

Don't forget to leave a comment on each blog, as listed below (with direct links) to be entered for a chance to win. We love to hear from you and, of course, would love for you to follow us, but it is not necessary to win. And while you are browsing and enjoying the hop, I hope you will take this opportunity to visit the Sin City Stamps online store to check out all of their fabulous stamps, both individual and plates. The plates are a really great bargain, and I just know you will love their images as much as I do.

Thanks so much for stopping by and for hopping along with us. Have a wonderful week!

Good Luck!

Barbara