Steampunk Time!

Hi, servus and thanks so much for stopping by today! As always on the fifteenth I am sharing my make for our "Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial" mixed media challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges alongside with the other lovely ladies from Team B!

I love ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and APCs (Altered Playing Cards) and found that I haven't been doing any of these lately. Sometimes I just seem to forget about favourite techniques or projects as there are so many new techniques out there that I want to try and learn...but I am not sure anymore that this is what will make me happy in the long run. For quite some time now  I have been feeling I would love to find my "home" and also be able to "come home" as an artist - to my favourite techniques, my favourite colours, themes, formats,...

So I decided to pick up doing the really small formats again and created an APC duo for this month's challenge:

I still had some prepped playing cards in my studio (covered with old book pages on both sides) and what sparked mojo this time was a "stained" card on which I had "cleaned" my palette knife during a different project...

...when I simply had added drops of DecoArt media fluid acrylic paints (English Red Oxide, Cobalt Turquoise Hue and Diarylide Yellow) and dragged them across the surface using a palette knife.

As I try to never waste any paint or other media I had scraped the excess across a third and fourth card (sometimes I do this on simple white scraps of card stock too that I always have ready at my desk...these can be used in so many ways on future projects!)

To soften the edges of the scraped on paint and also tone down some areas, I added a scraped on layer of white DecoArt Americana premium Gesso here and there. As the premium Gesso is very liquid it creates a transparent effect if being applied very thinly (which was exactly what I needed).

Once that had dried, I applied DecoArt media white Crackle Paste in some spots (using a very small palette knife this time). I put the two cards on the heating to speed up the crackling process. 

Using black Staz-On stamping ink I added some images from the Tim Holtz "Dapper" stamp set. 

I had painted two Calico Craft Parts gears and two pieces I had die cut (using the Tim Holtz "Industrial" Sizzix die) with DecoArt Dazzling Metallics "Moss Pearl" and "Teal"...

...and dabbed on a bit of DecoArt media Carbon Black Antiquing Cream with my fingertip to add a bit of a worn look to them. 

The words I wanted to use were stamped onto some yellowed paper from an old magazine and fussy cut. 

When all had dried and was ready, I glued everything in place using matte DecoArt Decou-Page. 

Then I finished up the APCs with some doodling with a white gel pen and washi tape. 

To make the crackles from the paste more visible (and also because I found the cards were still looking too clean) I applied a mix of DecoArt media Raw Umber and Carbon Black Antiquing Creams here and there and wiped back until I was content. 

The finished pair of APCs:

I hope you like them! If you want to get the chance to win a fab bundle of DecoArt media goodness or boozybear steampunk chipboard pieces, simply hop over to the challenge blog, check out the makes of my two wonderful teams to get that mojo flowin' and play along! 

Hope to see you over there!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx