CCM #94 - Steampunk!

This week's challenge is hosted by Doreen, who has chosen 'Steampunk' as her theme. We are sponsored by Di's DigiStamps with a $10 gift certificate, and by The Stampman with a £10 gift voucher.

Now I like the idea of Steampunk, but it's not really something I choose to use much in my cards. I did however, buy the Kanban Steampunk toppers when they first came out. Now, I know a lot of the true 'Steampunk'ers out there may consider this not to be a true representation, but I really like it - so have chosen to use 'Harrison' as the focal image for my card.

The cream base card is from Craftwork Cards, and I have used Kraft card by Papermania. I started by stamping the Papermania Beautiful Timepieces Urban stamp, and the largest of the Boofles Urban stamp Patchwork set onto the Kraft Card using Frayed Burlap DI. As I tried to make this into a kind of patchwork effect, there were gaps where it wasn't lined up correctly, so I used one of the cogs from the Chronology set of stamps that came free with DoCrafts Creativity magazine a while ago to fill in the gaps. I then embossed this with That Special Touch Cogs masked and used the Frayed Burlap direct to paper to bring some of this to the forefront. I ran a pair of scissors along the edge, before inking them.

On another piece of Kraft card, I stamped the armillary from the freebie stamp set. It's wierd, but I've always wanted one of the those for my garden. I cut this to size and then stamped another of the cogs around the edges, before distressing and inking them. 

The 3 embellishments are bottle caps.I stamped 3 cogs and roughly cut them out, before sticking them into the caps. I then stuck in some Cousin's charms - they look a little like pocket watches even though they aren't! I also added some Mother of Pearl mica flakes into the bottom before pouring on clear UTEE from my Melt Pot.  Am quite pleased with how they turned out - but it did come at a price. I tend to pour any left over UTEE into little silicone moulds so that I have solid lumps rather than lots of fragments. I had quite a bit left so needed more than one mould. Totally forgetting what I was dealing with, I managed to put my thumb into the the first one whilst trying to move it out of the way for the second. The high pitched yelp brought my OH running very quickly to see what had happened. Let's just say, it took a while under the cold tap before I managed to break off all the (now set) UTEE. I do seem to have come off lightly - no blister or scarring - only very sore skin! 

I also stamped the pocket watch from the Chronology set onto Shrink Plastic (one with a grid pattern on it) using Timber Brown Stazon. I cut this out before shrinking with my heat gun.

I inked the edges of the topper to dull it down a bit, then finished off with some twine and a matching sentiment. 

Pop on over to the Crafty Cardmakers blog to see how the other DT members have interpreted this challenge.

Cxxx