Urgh to Beautiful: Crafting Clocks gone wrong and then right!

It has been a while since I have had time to do a straight up regular blog post. I had plans to take pictures of the process of creating two more of the clocks that I was creating for my daughter's school auction. It turned into a project from H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY-STICKS! I first painted something on it, hated it, and decided to cover it with paper.  Before I delve into the mishaps, here is what the project ended up looking like.

I thought it came out AWESOME and I am sad that we are actually going to go to someone else... but for a good cause!  This shot also shows the glitter from the Champagne Mist spray that I mentioned in my previous post. 

Ok that is how it ended. Let's talk about how to start it.  I bought this clock at Hobby Lobby for 50% off. It is a pretty generic type clock with no glass or anything encasing the clock. I believe there was a chicken on this one.  I took the pin and clock hands off and after unscrewing the battery casing and mechanics, I pulled the back off and I had a clean slate.  I swirled Tombow Mono Aqua adhesive all over the top and placed the 12x12 square and smoothed out the surface.

After the glue had set for a bit, I took my sander above (my very beat up sander) and simply made X movements with the sander until the paper simply just tears and comes off. It is such a nice neat edge without having to worry about cutting and matching the edges. It makes a mess though. And gets in your eyes :)

I cut the castle from the Provencial Princess SVGs that I purchased at letteringdelights.com. I edged all the main pieces using the makeup application spongy-thing with my ink and stamped a design on one of the sections.

 And here is where it all started falling apart. I neglected to check the back when I placed the clouds and green grass down to see what way was UP! Very important when you are making a clock, plus it only hangs one way.  OK, so I had to take the clouds off and the grass as well trying to preserve the blue paper so I did not have to reapply it. 

 

I made the same mistake TWICE. The second time, it was not quite right and when I was going to place the castle down, it was just not possible to make it look like it was not leaning because of the angle of the grass.  Not willing to make the same mistake AGAIN, I lined up a ruler to the backing to visually see what angle I needed to place everything down. Phew!

The other two clocks I made, it simply did not matter which way was upright since it was more of a loose design.  Here is a quick glance at the other clock that I made:

I hope that they do well at the auction!