More Steampunk!

It was a happy day for me when I discovered Left Of Center Challenges.  It's a young blog, started in February this year,  dedicated to all sorts of stuff that I love SO much  - Steampunk, Goth, Halloween (year-round), dark, spooky, creepy, anime, edgy, mythical (fairy tale,  mermaids, dragons, fairy, literary characters, fan art),  and horror, as well as regular mainstream crafters.  The latest challenge is to include a sentiment, and here's my contribution.

I'm off work on leave just now, which means I can watch Create & Craft in the day, and last week Ali Reeve (Clever Crafter) was on demonstrating all sorts of wonderful things to do with That Special Touch masks. I have a fair collection of these and some of the things Ali was doing made me go " I'm going to try that!" 

One of the techniques involved using a mask in a letterpress technique, then blending DI's over the piece and brushing on mica powders - that's how I made the background image, and I have a feeling I'll be repeating the technique.  (rub ink over the mask , then run through your die cutting machine with the mask, ink up,  on your lower plate, then the paper face down, then squidgy mat and embossing plate.  Yes, I got it wrong a couple of times.  D'oh!) Once I'd got my background I had to think what to do with it (one day I will plan a project from start to finish, I promise...today is not the day, though).

I stamped the sentiment (one created with my Imagepac kit) onto Safmat  (stamping direct onto the embossed background would have been difficult)  and applied it to the background.  I die cut the piece, using the "out of bounds" technique and a Go Kreate die. 

I embossed a shaped card (again with a Special Touch mask), coloured with blended DI's and glued on the background.  I had a good rummage in my box of bits and found some gears and foliage that I'd die cut and coloured with Gilder's Paste for another project but hadn't used.  They went onto the card, tastefully arranged (!).  At that point I stepped away from the card...

Thanks for visiting - you're welcome back at any time.

Crafty Hugs,

Keren