Gears, gears, and a Balloon?

Hello yall! This is my first Design Team piece for Sandee&Amelies Steampunk Challenge! The theme this month is Gears! Remember to check out the rest of the DTs work by visiting each of their blogs. Here is my finished piece. 

This is an 8x10 flat canvas. I started by applying Gesso to my canvas and then added texture paste through 3 different stencils. 

Then comes the sprays and mists! I made my own spray box so I could happily spray all day and not worry about color going everywhere. Just a cardboard box and some paper towels. 

I used LSG sprays, Luminarte sprays, and Smooch sprays to achieve the Steampunk look I like. I also added alcohol ink for the patina look. I could have stopped here but there are no gears!!!!

I then used Silks to go over the texture and make it subtlety pop. Then came the gears!

I love using Creative Embellishments chipboard pieces. They have a wonderful selection of Steampunk pieces to choose from and I actually won the chippies I used in this piece. :) I painted all chippies with Gesso first, then dabbed Distress Paint Bundled Sage here and there on the gears, next I spritzed with a copper spray and edged the piece with black archival ink. I adhered the gears with TomBow Multi. 

Next came the hot air balloon chipboard piece. I started by creating my basket out of leather strips that I weaved together. Then I used Acrylic Metallic paint for the balloon part and added copper wire around the balloon. Then I added ribbon around the "handles" of the basket and adhered it with Tombow as well. 

I used copper embossing powder on the chipboard word "Create" and lightly brushed it with black archival ink to give it a grunged look. Hope you enjoyed! Carpe Diem! ~Niki

Want to try Steampunk, but you aren't sure where to start? Throw caution to the wind and just give it a go! Join in for this months theme of GEARS! Just remember to use some gears and you are golden! You never know what you will create! xx

Dreams and Wishes

I have much time on my hands now and have been sequestered away in my Craftroom having loads of fun. This piece I have been working on for a bit but never finished it until today! Whew!

I started out with a blank canvas and applied my damask stencil with homemade texture paste. I stenciled the entire canvas and the sides. 

While that was drying I set to work on my cheesecloth. I sprayed it with Lindys Stamp Gang Tea Pot Purple and Saltwater Taffy. I also used Heidi Swapp's Black Velvet. I added a piece of coordinating fabric on top of the cheesecloth. This piece falls into my craft room makeover colors. 

I then started on my chippies. For the title piece I painted it with gesso and then used LSG ST on it but it was too pink so I added perfect pearls (Grape Fizz) and Primary Elements (Ginger Flower) to give it a gradient look that showed the pink as well. 

 For the black swirl chippies I painted it with black acrylic paint and used sparkling black embossing powder to give it some bling. 

Lastly I added my gear clock chipboard after using the same colors on it as I did on my Dreams and Wishes chippy. I wanted it to be darker so I added some Primary Elements to it as well. Then the brad went in the middle and I adhered it to the canvas with some foam dimensional dots. 

Finally it is finished and so is my craftroom makeover. Viola! Carpe Diem!

This project will be shared with the following:

Artist Trading Post-Fresh Beginnings-HERE (new career path, newly refreshed Craftroom)

Frosted Designs-White as a Snowflake HERE I am trying a new technique of using white space. 

The Mirror Crack'd-Stencils HERE I used the damask stencil

Lindys Stamp Gang January Color Challenge HERE