Summer in the City

I managed to miss last month in the Craft Barn song title challenge so I've tried to be more organised and get it done in plenty of time this month!

This month's song is Summer in the City. I've stuck with my postcard format for this challenge and I seem to be developing a bit of a thing for image transfer!

The background is shaving foam marbling done with alcohol inks in hot colours to go with the theme of the song. Twiggy was the Face of 66, the same year The Lovin' Spoonful had a hit with Summer in the City and I think she'd definitely have been the kind of girl to dance all night. I used one of Andy Skinner's threshold graphics (you can find them all here) and did an image transfer over the background.

The number stamps are already a bit eroded/grungy in style so when they didn't stamp absolutely perfectly first time I decided I liked the way it looked and left it alone. Sadly, the handwritten song title and band name did smudge a little when I added a final coat of satin glaze but I decided they're still legible so I'll grin and bear it - waiting for an image transfer to dry is not my strong point so I didn't want to start again!

Supplies:
Bristol board
Copic reinkers (Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Orange)
Laser printed image
White acrylic paint
Satin Glaze by DecoArt
Fineline black marker
A & P Number stamps by Ma Vinci's Reliquary (sadly defunct)
Stazon ink (Jet Black)

Thanks for stopping by!

Steampunk snowflakes

Handling lots of cog shapes for Andy Skinner's Book of Secrets workshop reminded me of the fact I've always thought that the smallest snowflake in my Spellbinder set looks like a spiky cog. That set me thinking about steampunk snowflakes and this is the result.

It started life as a coffee tin and I had fun trying out a different colour combo for a more silvery/gunmetal style finish. I  added some detail like a line of glue at the "shoulder" for a welding seam and cheap Christmas bead chain in the groove around the top of the canister where the original lid would screw on because I decided that one looked too heavy on it once I'd done all the decorating. I made a new lid that just rests inside the top rim (it's several circles of cereal packet board glued together - the texture is scrunched up tissue stuck over the top - with a little wooden knob glued into place).

Supplies:
Coffee tin
Die cuts
Flat back pearls
Bead chain
Deep midnight blue and Prussian blue Americana acrylic paints by DecoArt
Shimmering Silver metallic acrylic paint by DecoArt
Texturizing medium by DecoArt
Cardstock
Wooden knob
Tissue paper

Gosh - no stamping! It's been a while since that happened.

Thanks for stopping by!

Book of Secrets!

I've been doing something new! I've never taken part in an online workshop before but I'm currently doing Andy Skinner's Book of Secrets one and having fun! Andy gets some fantastic finishes on his projects and steampunk is way outside my normal comfort zone so I decided to sign up and see what I could learn.

This post is a bit picture-heavy - sorry!

Andy uses a wooden box as the base for his tutorials but I decided to take the "book" part of the workshop title literally and I've used a real book as the base for my project. The people who owned our house before us left behind loads of "books by the yard" and we've never done anything with them. I chose one that looked extremely unlikely to have any financial or cultural value and set to work!

One of the things I struggle with on steampunk is the "more is more" aspect. I find it difficult to add lots of stuff and still feel happy with the overall composition. I think I did OK here and I didn't go for a straight copy of Andy's sample (trying to copy something is always a recipe for disaster at my craft table!).

The "power indicators" (flat back gems) were something that struck me as a fun addition to the mechanical components.

Andy adds dates to his large compass with metal punches. I liked the idea but didn't have the punches to achieve it. What I did have was an embossing tool with interchangable tips that my dad picked up for me at a car boot sale (thanks Dad!). I used it with a hammer to add detail right round the inside of the compass. I think it works quite well.

The spine has been given a leather-look makeover. It's not easy to tell that the book started life as a blue cloth-bound hardback and I think this would probably look quite convincing lined up with other volumes on a shelf!




I carved out a niche inside the book for the inner workings of the machine. I thought a butterfly would provide a suitably unexpected power house for a steampunk contraption and the light/bright colouring makes a nice contrast to the industrial tones.

Lessons for niche carving - be prepared to even up the right hand side once the pages are glued together as there's a surprising gradient on the pages of a closed book!  The slope on the left goes towards the spine and can't be seen but the slope on the right obviously goes into the niche itself.

Here's a detail of the texture on the cogs - nice and rusty!



Supplies:
Old book
Tand Creative chipboard shapes (Compass Duo and Cogs grab bag)
Die cuts
Cardstock
Lamp black, Burnt umber, Burnt sienna Americana Acrylic paints by DecoArt
Texturizing medium by DecoArt
Brads, googly eyes, flatback pearls and gems
Sun charm (saved from a freebie chiffon scarf)
Wings stamp set (Darkroom Door)
"Engine" and number from a retired B&O Railroad set (CHF)
Ranger Perfect Pearls
Copic markers

This is not quite complete yet - I need to do the back and as the niche only goes about half way down the depth of the book I've stuck together some pages so I have a couple of surfaces to decorate. I got distracted into trying a second project though, I'll share that soon!

The Book of Secrets workshop is running again at the end of the month - details of what it entails are here if anyone would like them.

Thanks for stopping by!