Matchbox Steampunk - August challenge "chez SanDee&amelie's"

Welcome back for another appetizer for the new challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges :)

This month we want you to 

use one or more matchboxes with your projects. 

As always our challenge is "anything goes"

as long as it is Steampunk 

and our monthly theme is incorporated. 

Of course this month we have a wonderful guest designer (with a lot of contageous creativity going on ;) with us again and a prize to give away for this month's randomly drawn prize winner. ;)


I had rolled this theme in my head for quite a long time - having no idea even though it was me who suggested the matchbox challenge... but after I had a long play with some white matchboxes, combining them in multiple ways, stacking them, building a row and whatever you can do with three matchboxes, I came up with a creation that I would call "cubist", as it reminds me of a lot of cubist sculptures that all have in common that the artist had a play with cubes, trying to arrange them to a shape and form that might draw the viewers interest to it ;)

So here comes my "Steampunk Cubism" *giggle:

It also reminds me of geometry drawing one learns at school ;)

I first covered a piece of crumpled and then again unfolded brown paper with random brushes of white DecoArt Gesso and after that had dried I stamped some Kaisercraft "dicitionary meanings" and IndigoBlu adverts on it with black archival ink. I covered the matchboxes with this paper, cutting off the excess afterwards.

The compartments of the matchboxes were sprayed with GlimmerMist first and then covered with a filmstrip washi tape on the outsides (which also helped to stabilize them).

Then I gave the edges of the boxes a shading with Distress ink "walnut stain" and glued the three boxes together. I also added some torn scraps of the brown stamped paper for more interest:

For the insides of the compartments I stamped three Steampunk images (from Oxford Impressions and Artistic Outpost) onto more gessoed brown paper, cut three pieces to size and glued them to the boxes' bottoms.

Next I stamped the "cube steam punk" onto white card using my HeroArts letter stamps and jet black and sepia archival inks. I cut the letters out separately and glued them to three different areas of my "sculpture". Afterwards I drew a black border around each letter for more depth.

Having all my paper work done I went on with embellishing. I created a handle for one of the compartments using thin black wire.

The second "drawer" got a metal tab on it showing my lucky number: 7.

To this matchbox I fixed a Tim Holtz idea-ology light bulb using wire again. The wire also holds the gear in place.

To the top of the third compartment I glued a Prima butterfly nut that I gave some dabs with alcohol ink "terra cotta", with which I also coloured the bulbs' sockets.

The bottlecap (one of my on-my-balcony-rusted ;) was embellished with a plastic button I coloured in black and gave some metallic rub ons from DecoArt afterwards. I also glued a rusty screw to the side of the "cube" matchbox.

The upright matchbox compartment was glued to the box to stay in place. The other two compartments can be closed and opened (to hide or reveal their "treasures").
I had a lot of fun embellishing my tiny sculpture with Prima-, selfmade- and Tim Holtz idea-ology goodness and I hope you like the outcome too :)

Please, hop over to our challenge blog to see what my dear friend and Steampunk soulmate SanDee1899 and our special guest Candy Colwell (YESSS, THE Candy Colwell ;) have prepared for your inspiration! I thank you for staying with me this far (as it was a quite picture heavy post again), wish you a happy crafting time and look forward to seeing your matchbox creations soon entered with our challenge at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk challenges. You always enter such a lot of creative awesome stuff - I can hardly wait to see what you come up with next!

I join the challenges over at SimonSaysStamp - "Anything Goes", Fashionalbe Stamping Challenges - "Script/Books/Pages/Print" , Divas by Design - "Favourite Color Combo" (I LOVE black and white combined with browns!), Out of a Hat Creations - "Numbers" (my lucky number 7 appears two times on my project) and Lady Anne's Challenges - "Monochrome" with this project.


Hugs,

die amelie x