Copy Cat? Or Inspired By?

Morning. It's time for another challenge over at Stampotique and this time we want to see you CASE a member of the DT's work. Now this is a challenge that I'm not altogether comfortable with as whilst I think it's OK to take inspiration from another person I don't think it's OK to copy their work in it's entirety especially when no credit is given to original artist. In addition when someone has created something brilliant, that little voice of self doubt creeps in and tells me that I'll never make anything as good/beautiful and as a result kills my mojo. Anyhow, as the challenge had been set I thought I'd play along, so I had a good look round my fellow team mates blogs and selected my victim!!!

I decided that I CASE my uber talented teamy Samantha Read and make one her fantastic glass cubes. I knew that it was going to be a challenge to make one of these that looked half presentable, but man I didn't think I'd fall at the first hurdle!! Oh and you'll have to excuse the picture quality on this post as well, it was an absolute nightmare to photograph!

Firstly, my Memory Glass was only 1 1/2" but I decided I could live with that, but then I spotted that Sam had used Super Glue :O - help........!!!! I'm such a messy worker that the words Super Glue struck terror into my heart. I've only used the stuff once and it almost ended in a trip to A&E with the kitchen worktop in tow!!! So with that in mind I was all but ready to go and CASE someone else! However, you know me I won't be defeated, so I slept on it and thought I'd try a couple of other things in place of the Super Glue.

I started off by trying UTEE which was OK but didn't allow me enough time line up the glass fully. Then I moved onto Memory Tape - this was reasonably successful but just looked a little cumbersome and kind of swamped my cube. So my last resort was Pinflair Glue - omg I love this stuff! It worked a treat!

I then stamped Snowman, Oh...Tree and Picket Fence onto white shrink plastic, coloured with pencils and then once shrunk glued them into position. I added some "faux snow" that I got in the Pound Store and then sealed my cube.

Sam used molten embossing powder to create the "faux soldered" effect on her cube and mentioned that her's had fallen to pieces a couple of times whilst dipping - eeekkk - molten UTEE burns just do not do it for me!!! I contemplated leaving the glass joints as they were, but then noticed that I had a tiny gap in the top right corner. So, I thought I'd try my usual swipe with Versamark and embossing powder technique. So glad I did as it worked just fine and I felt like I had a little more control over where the embossing powder went. Also, where odd specks of the powder stuck to the glass it gave a frosty effect (this can be scraped off if you don't like that effect).

To finish I added a shrink plastic snowflake and some glass pearls. I then looked at it and thought that it needed something else, so I added some Pinflair Glue Icicles (idea for these nicked from here). I've tried to show you how gorgeous they look in the above picture, but seem to have failed miserably :(

So what do you think of my spin on Sam's cube, is it a copy cat one or simply inspired by her?

Thanks for stopping by today.

Claire x

I'd like to enter this project into the following challenges:
Through The Craft Room Door - Anything goes
Make It Monday - Anything goes
Stamptacular Sunday - No rules
Inspire Me Friday - Anything goes
Anything but a card - Anything but a card