Matchbot!

Hi blog friends!

If you haven't yet found SanDee and amelie's Steampunk Challenge blog, I recommend you hop over there and take a look.  This month's challenge is to make something using matchboxes. I don't use matches very much, but I'm lucky enough to own a Silhouette Cameo and used it to cut four boxes from kraft card.  I was going to cut more, but after four my cutting mat decided that it had run out of sticky and just wouldn't hold the card in place, in spite of being washed and having repositionable adhesive applied (well, it is the one that came with the machine two and a half years ago!).  I gave up and ordered a new mat, and decided that four matchboxes was enough for the time being!

I experimented with ways of combining the boxes and decided to pile them one on top of another and stuck them together - so now I was committed!  Then I hit on the idea of putting wheels on it...then I thought "Robot!"...and Matchbot was born!

I gave some black card a coat of Ferro paint in shades of black and grey.  Once dry, I cut some lengths of  the card to fit the sides and top of the box and embossed them with Cuttlebug folders, and rubbed gilding waxes lightly over the surface to bring out the texture.  I die-cut a pair of ornamental posts while I had the Grand Calibur out and painted them in bronze.

I mounted the boxes on four little (1 inch) wooden wheels, painted black with bronze hubs.  I attached them to the axles with hot glue and added hubcaps made from flattened bead caps.

I covered the drawer fronts with some of the Ferro'd card and some net, which started off as gold but after being dunked in some brown acrylic paint is now a sort of yummy bronzy colour.  The handles are Sam Browne belt fasteners, bought from a well-known auction site.

Matchbot's arms came next.  Where would I be without bendy drinking straws?

And isn't it convenient that the stakes you can get for supporting plants in your garden fit neatly inside them?

A bit of paint (EcoGreen Aged Gold and Bronze) and some Milliput to model the hands and joints and to join the arms to the sides, and Matchbot was ready for duty!

At the moment. he's minding Lady Ermintrude's tatting shuttles (Lady E is a fan of the gentle needle arts), but he's willing to take care of any small trifles entrusted to him.