Lady Ermintrude's Aetheric Speaking Tube

I am so proud to have been asked to be July's Guest Designer over at SanDee & Amelie's Steampunk Challenge Blog.  Steampunk is just about my favourite style and I've had huge amounts of fun with this project.

Of course, when creating in the Steampunk genre, I channel Lady Ermintrude.  Inspired by Warehouse 13, Lady E has commissioned the Aetheric Speaking Tube (Steampunk mobile phone to you!)    Here's what it looks like inside -

And here's the exterior -

Here's what I started with- a tin of peppermints, some gold foil paper and some sealer.  First I ate the peppermints, and then I covered the tin and the foil paper in the sealer.

Then I gave the tin a couple of coats of black gesso and another coat or two of sealer.  I die-cut some fancy corners (the die is from Marianne) out of the gold foil paper.  Giving it a coat of sealer gives it more body and makes it look aged.

I cut a dial shape out of shrink plastic and painted it gold (after I'd shrunk it).  The other items in the picture are a circle of brown funky foam, a brass curtain ring, and a piece of mesh cut from a splatter guard (you know, the kind you use when frying sausages - well, cooking's not my strong point anyway!)  and coloured with alcohol pens.

I stuck the dial and the die-cuts on the front cover of the tin, cut a circle of card to fir the centre of the dial with a "telephone number" on it.  Then it was time to get on with the internal workings.  I cut a piece of card to fit inside,  covered in in some of the gold foil paper that I'd embossed and aged with a wash of black paint.  I cut a hole which will be for the screen and glued a curtain ring to make a frame, punched two holes and set grommets in them with the Crop-o-dile.  The speaker is was assembled by putting the mesh on top of the funky foam and sticking a curtain ring on top -

The black things you can see in the picture are stoppers from sample bottles of perfume, dipped in sealer first and allowed to dry, then dipped into gesso.  I cut the stems off and stuck them throughout the holes in the grommets.  Finally,  I cut another piece of card, stuck a large glass Glintz cabochon to it and assembled the panel.  The inside of the lid is a piece of copper foil, embossed and distressed.

And here's how it turned out again.

Thank you for visiting.  I hope you're going to play at Sandee's & Amelie's this month!  

Crafty hugs,

Keren