Steampunking

So this past Sunday I had a blissful 5 hours of play time. It was fantastic. Even though I was home for 2 weeks on vacation, I didn't get into the play space as much as I wanted...no surprise, with the holidays and with my daughter home from college, there were just too many other distractions.

However the good part was when I did get into the studio, I had a big chunk of time in there.

So Sunday I was playing with this set I bought back before Christmas from Chocolate Baroque, a British stamp company. First time I actually got to play with them too.

(Right now the whole store is 25% off, the whole month!!!! Wahoo!)

So I wanted to create some great metallic looking backgrounds. The top one is made by embossing and using metallic Distress Paints and some rust embossing powder. Plus I stamped some small writing images in dark brown on it to give it more of a worn effect.

I love how the bottom gear on the owl card came out. I had used a silver pen, then inked it and to me it really has a rusty metal look to it.

Always a good thing when you achieve the effect you want. Doesn't always happen, for sure.

On this card is used some aluminium tape that you'd get at your local hardware or home improvement store. I laid the tape in different size pieces and slightly overlapping ways. Then I used a regular old pen to make the lines and the circle indents-then I painted it with some metallic Distress paints- copper and bronze, and finally rubbed some black Distress paint over that. Before that dried too much I gave it a good rubbing-even rubbed some spots bare to make it look really worn.

Another trick I like to use to age things is to rub Mango colored ink over my stamped and colored images.  I used Memories brand.

I find this brownish-orangish color really ages and dulled the bright colored parts. Then I added some silver pen which really brings out the metallic look. The oval part really came out just like I wanted it to. I first sprayed it blue (Dylusions) and then used a copper colored Perfect Pearl spray. I kitchen rolled  them, gave it a quick dry with my heat gun and used some white Distress Paint to make some cloudy-like splotches. 

So that's what I have to show you today.

We're into that deep freeze for a day (luckily only a day) that the midwest has been suffering through, the Polar Vortex is what the meteorologists are calling it. I won't complain because those poor people in the midwest (which might be you) have it way colder for longer than we're going to get it, but I tell you, between our previous cold snaps and the snow its been a tough winter so far. (Of course when its not super cold we are practically in a heat wave...you just don't know...)

Glad you stopped by and hope to see you again.