Steampunk Sweetheart for Anything But A Card #39

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The whole set

I have had the stamp set I used as a base for this project for years and it turned into one of those sets that you adore, but can't bring yourself to actually use, until that one project comes along and BAM! This entire project was literally built around one stamp from a set called French Laundry #11.  I remember seeing an ad for the sets in a stamping publication and I immediately went to the web site called Character Constructions, made by the talented Catherine Moore, and drooled at them all (and now she even has custom dies to coordinate with some of the sets!).  I don’t remember why I chose this particular set but I have been wanting to use her for the longest time and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to get her inked. I introduce my Steampunk Sweetheart for challenge #39 at Anything But A Card:

My Steampunk Sweetheart

What I Used in My Project:

9 x 12 piece of frame board

Character Constructions Set French Laundry #11

Tea Dyed Coffee Filters (I dyed about 8, I think I used 5 or 6)

Tim Holtz Idea-ology File Tabs w/ gear sticker (on her hat)

Tim Holtz Grungeboard Wings (mine are embossed with the Harlequin design)

Tim Holtz Grungeboard Letters Mixed Minis

Darice Gears Embossing Folder

Brown “velvet” Paper

Brown Cardstock Scrap

Corset Card Cutfile

Silhouette Cameo

White Cardstock

Ranger Archival Ink in Jet Black

Distress Ink in Brushed Corduroy

Distress Paint in Gathered Twigs

Krylon Leafing Pen in Red Shimmer

Butterfly Sticker (stash)

Gesso

Stampin’ Up! Paper for Background (discontinued)

Star Punches (various sizes)

Scraps of Metallic Papers

Stickles in Star Dust

Miscellaneous Embellishments

Crafters’ Pick The Ultimate Glue

First thing I did was dye the coffee filters (the round ones) in tea for 2 full days and dried them.  I have wanted to make a frilly something out of coffee filters ever since I saw some demos online about coffee filter flowers and I felt they’d make a wonderful skirt.  I stamped the woman from the French Laundry #11 set using the Jet Black ink and fussy cut her out, leaving her arms separate.

  I set her and the skirt aside and gessoed the wings.  I was hoping to obscure some of the Harlequin pattern that was embossed in them already; it worked a bit and set the stage for using the gears embossing folder.  A tip: I have a Sizzix Big Shot and I found that the wings (and I figure all Grungeboard) is too thick to run through the machine the way you are supposed to when using an embossing folder, but I found that when I used the 2 clear cutting plates with the thick platform (I think it is called the Universal Platform?), but without the shim, it worked fine.  Took a bit of muscle, but nothing broke. So I ran the wings through and then lightly swept the Distress Ink Pad in Brushed Corduroy on the top and sides just to pop out the gear embossing a bit more.  I covered my board with the decorative paper from Stampin’ Up! like I was wrapping a gift so I wouldn’t have to fuss with trying to cut the paper and then glue it perfectly. 

I knew I wanted my Steampunk Sweetheart to have a corset.  I have a few corset stamps, but none of them fit her the way I wanted, so I went to my Silhouette Cameo and found a corset card.  I choose what pieces of the card I wanted to use and I cut the outer layer using some old brown “velvet” paper I had as well as some brown fiber as the lace up. I also cut out one under layer using white cardstock and that just peeks out the very top of her corset.  The corset it a bit big for her but I think it flows nicely with the skirt.  Her boots are just hand cut. 

I tackled the lettering next.  I used Grungeboard Mixed Mini letters and I painted them all using Distress Paint in Gathered Twigs, I painted all the letters twice to ensure really good coverage.  I liked the matte color of the paint, but I also wanted to jazz the letters up just a bit so I took my seldom used Krylon Leaf Pen in Red Simmer and outlined the letters with that.  Now previous experience has taught me that Grungeboard is flexible, so I knew I’d make some “mistakes” while outlining the letters but that is precisely what I wanted.  I wanted some of the shimmer to show on the top of the letters but I didn’t want it to be overwhelming.  It was nice not having to be careful when doing the outline, especially since I had to make the pen really juicy so the ink would flow into parts of the letters the nib couldn’t reach.

Finally she was ready to be put together.  I wasn’t exactly positive how I was going to pose her, so I attached her arms with 2 small black brads I had.  The arm holding the clock is stationary, but her right arm does move. I hand cut her top hat and attached the Idea-ology File Tab with the gear in it onto her hat.  I colored the cat eye glasses silver with another Krylon Leafing Pen, took some loose gears and attached them to her wings.  I crumpled up the tea dyed coffee filters and arranged them to appear like a layered skirt. 

I attached the body to the skirt, the corset over the skirt and body, glued the wings to the back of that and finished up with all the embellishments, which included stars punched out of various metallic papers and coated with Stickles placed randomly about (oh and I glued her boots to her skirt).  I held her in place with temporary tape and glued all the letters in place, attaching her last. 

Head Shot

And there you have it – my Steampunk Sweetheart wall hanging.  I worked on her for quite a while, once
my initial idea started to become a reality, in between other projects and it was SO much fun! I have admired Steampunk at since it burst on the scene and it was a pleasure to create something I feel is worthy of being called Steampunk.  I hope you enjoyed my long tutorial and perhaps gained a bit of inspiration to get your own Steampunk creation and enter at Anything But A Card ~ Christi

Another View

I would like to enter my Steampunk Sweetheart in the following challenges:
Divas By Design - Anything But a Card
Stamping Sensations - September Challenge, Things with Wings
Inky Chicks - #38, Anything Goes
Ruby's Rainbow - #88, Anything Goes
Papertake Weekly  - Punch it Out (used star punches)

The Little Halloween Box from Hell

Did you ever have a project that started out fine but then became such a nightmare you were tempted more than once to just chuck the thing through the window? Welcome to that project.  The saga of the small Halloween demon box from Hell begins now.

It started out innocent enough – on one of my trips to the Dollar Tree (dollar store) I found a cute little wooden box with a magnetic closure.  Yippee!  That was the best part of this project for me. 

First, let me tell you I adore Halloween.  Love it, love everything about it; the spookiness, the candy, the weather, the colors, everything.  So I make lots of Halloween decorations, just for me to enjoy. And that is what I decided to do with my cute little box.  I thought I would try to do “things right” this time and I actually took the hinges off (and put straight pins in the hinge holes so I wouldn’t fill them with paint and lose them – I am so brilliant sometimes!) so I could decorate the box without having to worry about getting paint and whatnot on them.  I gessoed the box and thought about what color I’d like to paint it.  This is where my nightmare began.

I had bought some cheap acrylic paints quite a while back and I had one called “Sparkle Black” or something like that – I can’t tell you the actual name because I threw the thing away – and I happily painted my box with this wonderful paint, expecting some shimmer in the black. If you read my blog you know I am a fanatical “drier” – I let things dry overnight, at least.  Well, my cute little box got to dry even longer because we were hit with a massive heat wave, like two weeks in the high 90’s.  When I went back to my box, I noticed that the coverage wasn’t even – at all.  It was streaky and I could still see some of the white gesso under the paint.  No problem, I just put another coat on it and went about my business.  Well, when I went back to my box it stuck to the wax paper. I have never had this happen before but I dutifully touched up the spots and set it to dry again.  It looked OK, no shimmer or sparkle, but I didn’t really mind that it was a “regular” black.  This time I had put the 2 pieces of the box together and left it for a while as I attended to other projects.  The 2 sides didn’t exactly stick together, but I had to use some effort to get them apart which caused some of the paint to chip again.  OK, by this time, I am getting a tad irritated, but I touched up the spots and left it. 

I had gotten the “Steampunk Spells” DCWV paper pack and I compulsively save paper that I love so I was determined to use something out of the stack; my theory being if it is cut once it’s OK to cut again.  I had picked out a cute little label for the top of the box and had some of the paper die cut flowers and gears that came with the stack – so spooky!  As I went to try and see how the label was going to look on the top the light hit the inside of the box and it was STILL streaky and now I was mad.  I decided right then to throw the stupid paint out (which I NEVER do) and just break out my Golden Carbon Black.  After I finally fixed the paint (by painting over the box with carbon black), I took some old ribbon I had gotten in a kit and glued it around the edge of the top.  I then decided to seal the whole box with some gel medium because I was certain I didn’t get ever single spot with my good acrylic paint and if this box chipped one more time I was going to throw it in the road and run it over.  This painting part of the project took me about three weeks, between the heat wave, the touch ups and finally painting it with the Golden paint. 

Sure enough, I had missed covering some of the old paint.  And the spots I had missed became reactivated when I brushed the gel medium onto the box, which of course I didn’t realize until I brushed some on my ribbon.  Ok, I can live with the ribbon being muted by the now black gel medium; I didn’t really have a choice because I certainly wasn’t going to rip the ribbon off and start over – I mean it is a dollar store box and I was afraid it would disintegrate if I messed with it any more.  Plus, the thought of gessoing the box and painting it again was just NOT an option.  I think it makes the ribbon look more spooky (yes, I am trying to make myself feel better). 

The ribbon on the left is adhered to the box & the ribbon on the right (the nice shiny ribbon) is what it looked like prior to me sealing the box with gel medium.

I forged ahead.  I decided I needed a shelf inside the box because I was going to make it stand up as opposed to open like a regular box.  So I made a shelf out of a piece of scrap chipboard; all I did was fold it so it fit, in an upside U shape so I had a shelf & two "legs",  I then covered the shelf with black gaffer’s tape so it would have a bit of sturdiness to it.  To my surprise it worked! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the shelf before I put it in the box.

Then I began to fill my box with all the cute little goodies I had in my stash.  I can’t even tell you where this stuff came from because I have been collecting it for years.  Feel free to put whatever you have hanging around in your box.  I made the spells, elixir and notions labels in Microsoft Publisher and I used some of the flowers & gears out of the paper pack to decorate a little bit.  I glued my cut out on the front (I waited until last to do this because I ADORE this paper and I would have been completely insane if somehow this demon box messed up the label and made it unusable) and the little flower.  I did end up putting four black pony beads on the bottom of the box (and now you can’t open it up all the way or it falls over – par for the course with this project) and you will see the feet in some pictures. 

Not sure why it looks filmy in this picture

The box is on it's back here

 Here are the items I used:

The actual box:

Small wooden box (Dollar Tree)

Black Acrylic Paint (I FINALLY used Golden Carbon Black)

Length of ribbon for around the top

DCWV Steampunk Spells Paper Stack & paper die cuts

Glossy gel medium (I use GOLDEN)

4 straight pins for the holes that the hinges go in (so you don’t fill the holes with paint)

Handle brad (with the little things cut off so it lies flat)

 

Inside the box: 

Wooden Bottles (Scotty’s Pork Chop Show this is a link to his Esty shop but he is also on eBay)

Skull Button (with the shank cut off)

Krylon Gold Leaf Pen (to paint the weird head game piece)

Spell Book (I made mine out of a Mahjong piece, and covered it with the Steampunk Spells paper. Why a Mahjong piece? Cause it fit perfectly!)

Elixir bottle (I have TONS of little bottles)

Notions (I used a small white box for this)

Small ghost with pumpkin

Glass candy corn (I know this was a table scatter but can’t recall where I got it)

And here is the inside

I am actually really pleased with how it came out considering.  Please let me know what you think & I would love to hear your stories of “craft projects from hell.”

I would also like to enter my little Halloween Box from Hell in the following challenges:
C.R.A.F.T, Challenge # 128 - Autumn/Halloween/Thanksgiving (I went with Halloween)
My Craft Creations - Anything Goes
Country View Challenge - Something Spooky (second entry)
Crafty Catz - #202 Time for Halloween
Creative Inspirations Paint - Inspired by Halloween (second entry)
DL.Art - October Linky Party
Hobbycutz Challenge - #19 Halloween
Left of Center Creative Challenges - LOC/Halloween/Orange/Black
Unruly PaperArts - Black (RAQ1)