Steampunk Brianna

Sorry for the lack of posts lately.  Last week I had to catch up on some reading for my other blog and this week I wasn't feeling well.  That passed yesterday and I managed to do some card crafting again, so I'll have some new cards up for you next week.

Today I've got my entry for Kenny K's Steampunk challenge and Simon Says Stamp's Wednesday "Anything Goes" challenge.  I've missed working with the awesome Kenny K digis.  Today I used Brianna Blaster for my card.  I printed her out and cut her outline using my Silhouette SD (one reason I haven't used digis for a bit is because my cutting mat needed replacing and I dithered over it as the SD has been discontinued, so I needed to find an alternate.  More on that next week).

I started with a red layer meant to back Brianna.  I have a doily stamp that looks like wrought iron, so I inked that a few times in black.  I then cut a similar sized black piece of cardstock to put underneath and stamped some gears on it in versa mark ink.  I then embossed those with red glitter embossing powder (much of which later wiped off, but it still looks cool).  I ended up switching the layers around to show more of the embossing.

The third layer is black magic cardstock from Core-dinations.  It's black on top and white underneath.  I cut the piece and then ripped the edges.  I embossed it with a steampunk plate and then sanded some of the raised bits.  The cardback is black cardstock.

For the embellishments I used some silver and grey gears I cut out the last time I did a steampunk card, glued on between the layers.  The 3D gear is from one of my tape runners painted with metallic nail polish.  I had to cut out the centre part as it stuck out too much, so I glued a gear brad to cover the hole. The colour of the brad was too dull for the card so I painted it with silver nail polish.

Finally Brianna.  I coloured her with pencil crayons, adding a silver pencil crayon for the hair, eyes and parts of her gun and outfit.  I also used black and silver glitter pens for the detail work and a red glitter pen for the gauzy cape she's wearing.  There's a touch of glossy accents on her goggles.

The layers are all taped on with Brianna added with pop-dots at the end.  It's one of the busiest cards I've made, but I rather like it.

Get it in Gear

I recently became aware of Kenny K digital stamps.  I've wanted to try digital stamps for a while, and as they've got a free download, I thought I'd check it out.  I wanted to see how easy it would be to use the png file they provide in my Silhouette studio software to create a cutting file.  It went quite easily (though I did have to tweak a few of the lines, as I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to crafting).  Anyway, I liked how it worked and decided to buy a few images, as I really like the artwork on these (note, some of them tend to the adult side of imagery while others are kid friendly).

I'm entering this card in their blog challenge for this week, Layer it up.  I'm also entering it in Simon Says Stamp's Anything Goes challenge.

This is one of the most complex cards I've made in a while, with quite a number of materials and steps. But I love how it turned out.

I started by embossing the background and rubbing a silver Gelato stick over it. I wanted a rougher look so I made sure the coverage wasn't complete.  I also only wanted it on the raised pieces and so rubbed with some care.  I then buffed the Gelato with a dry craft sponge (I wasn't too thrilled with the finger or tissue attempt last time.  The sponge worked great, not stealing too much colour, while giving good coverage).

The next step was to get my Kenny K image - Scarlett West.  I imported her into my Silhouette studio program, traced her to get a cut outline and then polished the outline a bit.  I wanted the outline to show, and so made it a bit larger than the printed image (obviously this worked better in some areas than others, but I didn't mind how it turned out).  I also had to add cutting areas around the hip bag, as that wasn't part of the trace.

I forgot to add my registration marks, so when I printed the image and put it in the Silhouette for cutting, there was no way for the machine to know where the image was.  Yeah, that took a bit to figure out.  Once I had the registration marks on, I printed it again and then cut the image.  I love how little work this will be in the future.  I don't mind fussy cutting small images, but something this complex takes time and that's better spent doing other types of crafting.

While I had the Silhouette on I decided to cut out various sized gears in silver and black cardstock for decorations.

I coloured Scarlett West in with pencil crayons and then went over it with gamsol and blending stumps so the colour looked uniform.  I didn't bother much with shading for this image, being impatient to see the card put together.

I finished her off with some gold and silver markers and a red gel pen,  I also added dabs of glossy accents (rather than my usual Mod Podge, which was just so messy for small jobs) to the goggles.

To finish it off, I die cut a tag and stamped the sentiment on it.  It's a cling stamp and I had to write the sentiment on the back myself, making placement a bit tricky (as evidence by the fact that it's not centered here).  I used two brads to hold it in place.  The gears are alternately glued on and popped up, but I tried to make the teeth line up so it would look realistic.  I also popped Scarlett.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections white, silver, black, grey
Kenny K digital stamp: Scarlett West
Stamp: Kimmie's Steampunk Sentiments
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug - Clockworks
Die: Spellbinders Fancy Tags 2
Pencil Crayons: Berol Canadiana
Faber Castel Pitt Markers - gold & silver, Gelato - silver
Studio gel red pen
Memento ink
Glossy Accents
Create Impressions screw top brads
gamsol & blending stumps
pop dots, glue

Steampunk Heart

Got another quick card post today.  I wanted to do something steampunk and I got this great stamp set called Musicale, with a steampunk heart.  I stamed it on black paper because I wanted to test out my metallic bronze ink.  

Alas, the ink (being pigment) didn't seem to dry entirely, or flaked off when I used pop dots on it so that raised section isn't glued on properly.  I'll either need to find another way to attach it, or just glue it flat.

Aside from that, I like this card, especially the gears in the heart and the steampunk embossed background.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Recollections
Stamp: Prima Marketing - Musicale, Kraftin' Kimmie - Steampunk Sentiments
Embossing Plate: Cuttlebug - Clockworks
Hot-fix gems: Imaginesce

Steampunk Elizabeth

Things are busy at home - again - which means you're just getting a card again.  I really need to post some of my older cards, these new ones 'tend' to look pretty good (if I do say so myself) and I haven't finished convincing you that my cards used to look horrible (on average).

Anyway, this one I started last week with the background.  I've wanted a clock background stamp but wondered if I could make my own with the clock stamps I have.  Turns out I can, but with the masking it's rather time consuming.  It would have helped too had I confirmed the card base was right side up before I started (rather than at the end).  Hence all the upside down clocks.

Unless I know what occasion I'm using the card for I wait until I'm going to send it before adding a sentiment.

And as an aside, it turns out that you can tape an unmounted stamp to an acrylic block to stamp with it. I wouldn't suggest that as a long term solution, but it's definitely good in a pinch if you don't have mounting foam and want to use your unmounted stamp.

Supplies:
Cardstock: white Recollections
Stamps: Close to my Heart - Key Moments, Inkadinkado - Clock Wings, Make it Crafty - Elizabeth J
Ink: Memento Black Tuxedo
Markers: Crayola
Sakura gold gel pen
Martha Stewart scoreboard