Floral Steampunk Stepper Card using Punky Flowers (by Anne)

I was lucky enough to grab the special offer ‘Stash Box’ from Chocolate Baroque before they flew off the shelves. There was so much stash included I couldn’t believe it. The Lucky Dip stamp sets that I received were right up my street, Steampunk and sewing themed sets, and I didn’t already have them. How lucky was I! I got all of this for just over the cost of one A4 stamp sheet. I will be busy for some time with this lot.

 

I just had to create something using the Punky Flowers stamp set included. I made this stepper card for a friend and he loved it.

 

 

Materials:

• Mottled Cream Card for card base, pearlescent gold paper for layering, Kraft card for die cuts, white card for stamping
• Punky Flowers and Card Sentiments stamp sets
• Inkpads: Versamark, Distress Inks (Mustard Seed, Carved Pumpkin, Peacock Feathers, Gathered Twigs)
• Embossing powders: Detailed gold, copper and verdigris
• Pebeo Drawing Gum
• Fine satin ribbon (turquoise) and 3D glue gel
• Dies for stepper card, tag and cogs 
• Embossing folder for textured gears

Summary of Methods Used:

1. I used dies to create the stepper card and mats for layering and stamping. Small gears were die cut from Kraft card for embellishing. I used an embossing folder to create the gear textures.
2. Images were stamped with Versamark and heat embossed with fine gold powder.
3. The main image was masked using Pebeo Drawing Gum. I really love this masking fluid. It is water soluble while wet so cleaning up brushes is so easy and there is no nasty rubbery ammonia smell that some masking fluids give.
4. I coloured the backgrounds with Distress inks. I also randomly heat embossed some of the textured gears with a mix of the gold, copper and verdigris embossing powders.
5. When completely dry I removed the drawing gum (it rubs off really easily) and coloured the main image and smaller images using Distress Inks and water on a brush. The smaller images were cut out for decoupage.
6. Layers were then glued to the card blank. 3D glue gel was used for the embellishments to give added depth.
7. As this was for a friend I created a personalised sentiment mini tag to finish the card.

 

Travel Journal (posted by Elaine)

I have really enjoyed playing with the new steampunk stamps, even though I don't really normally count myself as a steampunk fan. Sometimes it is great to step outside our comfort zones and get playing. For this project I used a ready made book shaped box from a high street chain.

When I first started the book was all pink and feminine. I started by choosing some 12 x 12 paper which I coloured with Vintage Photo Distress ink and overstamped with a stamp from the Texture Fragment set to give the feel of vintage paper. I made a spine by colouring a strip of adhesive canvas with Expresso Adirondack dye ink.

I stamped images from the steampunk sets and embossed them in copper metallic EP. Then I distressed the images with more Vintage Photo DI and coloured pencil shading. I finished the project by raiding my hardware selection for keys, a lock panel, book corners, pen nib etc.

Hope you enjoy playing with these great stamps!

Elaine x