Steampunk Birthday Tag for SanDee&amelie's June 2020 Steampunk Challenge

Hi, servus and welcome to the launch of our June challenge over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges! Over at our challenge blog a new challenge and some new inspirational projects by my wonderful design team are awaiting you!

The theme is as always "Anything Goes - Steampunk/Industrial" - so just enjoy some steampunk or industrial style fun the way that makes you feel best and play along! As always we will give away two prizes from our generous sponsors DecoArt and boozybear - so don't miss the chance to win one of these! ;)

My make for June is a birthday tag with loads of delicious crackle and a special mechanical heart!

I had been given a lovely dies set to create a steampunk heart with loads of cogs and gears quite some time ago and now it was finally time to play with it!

A lot of paint layers, dry brushing, toning down and highlighting again went into my steampunk heart and I really loved building my own mechanics by die cutting some of the gears several times and combining the many different parts in a playful way. Next time I use this heart it will for sure have a different mechanism ;)


I started by die cutting the heart's base and all the cogs and gears from heavy black cardstock. To make the heart even more sturdy I cut another heart shape from some cardboard packaging to glue it behind the die cut heart.

I used the "Foundry" 3D embossing folder to add some texture to the die cut heart before I glued the sturdy back to it. Then I started building "clusters" of cogs and gears. As some of the pieces were really tiny, I used diluted DecoArt matte Decou-Page and a detail brush to apply the glue and to fix the small bits to their proper spots.

This is how my finished heart looked once it was ready to get painted:

I started by dry brushing on layers of DecoArt premium Titan Buff and Burnt Sienna acrylic paints.

Then I went for a rusty, brown-ish look and added more dry brushed layers - this time I used Titan Buff, Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Gold Hue and Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide.

I actually liked that, but I wanted to go for something a bit brighter - so I decided to add a bit of "patina" by dry brushing some spots with Cobalt Teal Hue.

I loved that version too...but for this particular tag I had a background in mind that would need something more contrasting and bright...so I decided to try a third version (isn't it a good thing that you can paint over acrylics again and again?).

I toned everything down with a subtle dry brushed on layer of Carbon Black and then kind of started anew - though the layers that were already there were definitely adding a lot of depth to the end result - so these weren't done in vain.

This time I started by dry brushing the centre of the heart with Titan Buff first, letting the intensity of the layers fade out towards the outer edges. I added about three layers of Titan Buff this way, making sure they all faded out nicely and turned the very centre brighter and brighter. Next I made the centre the brightest spot by adding Titanium White and not spreading that too much. That was the base for the colours to follow: mixes of Titan Buff and Diarylide Yellow, Diarylide Yellow and Vermillion Hue, Vermillion Hue and Pyrrole Red but also the pure colours in between to achieve a kind of blend with the most intense red in the centre.

Yep! I definitely liked that and it was perfect to contrast the background colour I had in mind for my tag. But first I added DecoArt Metallic Lustres Black Shimmer and Radiant Red here and there using my fingertip.

My tag (which was die cut from very thick grey board) first got a thorough layer of DecoArt Americana Lamp Black acrylic paint and one that had dried I applied a generous layer of DecoArt Weathered Wood. I made sure I changed direction while brushing on the crackle medium - this way I would get nice variations of the cracks' directions.

Once the Weathered Wood had dried to the touch I used a very soft wide flat brush to gently apply a layer of DecoArt Chalky Finish paint "vintage". I didn't cover the tag's edges so a black border would remain visible.

The crackling happens so fast that you shouldn't work over the same area twice! 

I definitely liked the result! The very tiny cracks where there is only a very thin layer of paint - and the larger ones where the paint was applied thicker.

To repeat the red from the heart I sprinkled some drops of red DecoArt media Mister to the tag.
I also applied some Black Shimmer Metallic Lustre around the tag's edges.

Next I toned everything down with a very thin wash of Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide media fluid acrylic paint.

The background was still missing some interest - so I added a bit of stencilling  using some of Andy Skinner's DecoArt stencils and DecoArt Americana acrylic paint French Vanilla.

On top of that I added another thin wash - this time of English Red Oxide.
To finish off my tag I added a word sticker that I shaded in using my Stabilo All pencil and a wet brush. The heart was fixed to the tag using very thick sticky foam pads for additional dimension.

Done! 

Some detail shots: 

I hope you like my tag! There are a lot of different dies sets out there to create this kind of layered steampunk heart - so I am sure you will find the one you like best. And of course the techniques shown and the design can be used on any other kind of theme.

I hope to see you over at SanDee&amelie's Steampunk Challenges soon! And I promise you will love the team's inspirational projects this month!

Hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx

Rust it Up - for SimonSaysStamp Monday Challenges

Hi, servus and welcome to my second post and project as a spotlighted guest at SimonSaysStamp's Monday Challenges this January!

I am so honoured to be invited to guest with them this month and this week's theme definitely was just right up my alley:

Rust it Up

is the theme for this week's challenge and as the beauty of rust of all kinds is one of my favourite themes in general, I found it quite difficult for me to limit myself down to just a few products and items from my stash - but finally I made my choice and this is the result:

I have altered a cardboard box I once bought at a well known Swedish furniture store. It is part of a four piece desk organiser and the other three containers still sit on one of my shelves, waiting to be turned into something more pleasing to look at ;)

I've used the cool Voltage Sizzix die designed by my favourite dies designer - Tim Holtz! As it is a BigZ die it cuts through really heavy grey board - so my panel looks awesomely dimensional and turning it into a rusted and forgotten looking piece of tech gear was great fun! Here's what I did to create this panel:

I started with die cutting all the pieces on the Voltage BigZ die twice from thick greyboard. I stacked the base and circle shaped elements, but only used a single layer for the hand and the screws and washers.

I also cut a piece of acetate to size so it fit between the two circle shaped panels and coloured it using Ranger Caramel Alcohol ink and a piece of alcohol ink blending felt with the blending tool.
I had also stamped a scale - using the stamp from Tim's "The Professor" stamp set - onto some white card stock that I had cut to size using one of the die cut window shapes as a mask to trace around so I could cut it to according size to insert it after blending its edges with vintage photo Distress Ink using the ink blending tool.

This image shows how thick the two layers of greyboard are. The alcohol inked acetate was glued between the two upper layers.

Using Distress Paint antiqued bronze by dipping a soft flat brush into the bottle I painted the voltage indicating device and then sprinkled Emerald Creek Baked Texture Chunky Rust and Patina Oxide here and there on the still wet paint. This way I didn't need any embossing ink to make the embossing powders stick to the project's surface.

I added more heat embossing - this time using Ranger Verdigris embossing powder. Afterwards I dry brushed all the edges using black soot Distress Paint and a flat small bristle brush.

To do so I dabbed a bit of Distress paint on my palette on my glass media mat, then only loaded the very tip of my brush with paint most of which I wiped off on a piece of kitchen roll before I used the left overs on the brush to gently brush that to the edges.

The index hand was given a coat of barn door Distress Paint before I dry brushed its edges too and once that had dried I added a thin coat of Ranger Clear Embossing Powder.

One of the bent shaped panels I had die cut was primed with a layer of black soot Distress Paint and then heat embossed using the Aged Silver embossing enamel from the Stampendous Frantage Embossing Enameling Kit. 
Two small sticky half pearls were used as rivets and given a quick brushing over with black soot Distress paint.

Time to glue everything in place! Yep - that looked quite cool so far ;)

This is a before image of the cardboard container I was going to alter. I took my finished voltage indicating device and rummaged my paper stash for a matching designer paper...

...which was a sheet from Tim's Lost and Found paper stash. It was cut to size and I used the container to measure the height and length of the strip I needed. I also added a finger's width to have an overlap where the paper edges would meet.

Using Tacky Glue - as I had been using before - I glued the paper in place, making sure all the edges were neatly stuck to the box surface. To tone in the paper so it matched my voltage index even better I applied a layer of vintage photo Distress Ink around all sides.

Afterwards I blended the edges of my box using a piece of Ranger Cut-n-Dry Foam and jet black archival ink.

I had decided to add some affirmative quote to my desk organiser and picked one of the beautifully dimensional Tim Holtz idea-ology Quote Chips. It was toned in too using vintage photo Distress Ink and jet black archival ink around the edges.

And because the quote chip tells me to use my wings, I also stamped the order "fly" onto the Aged Silver panel using StazOn black stamping ink and some Hero Arts letter stamps.

Done!

My new desk tidy for my pokey tools, bone folders and drills was ready to use! Yay! 

What is it that you are going to rust up to play along in this week's 

Monday Challenge at SimonSaysStamp? 

Don't forget - there's a fantastic 

to be won by one lucky randomly drawn winner! 

All the products I have used to create my project can be found in their online store (just click on the product names in my write-up to get taken to the product on their shop site). 

Good luck and 

hugs and happy crafting!

Claudia

xxx