Thursday 28 August 2014

Stepping (gingerly) into Steampunk

I have to admit to a nervous gulp when I was that this week's challenge at Cards 4 Guys is Steampunk.  I've seen Stampunk cards around, and even once made a card that might vaguely have fitted in to the category, but I really didn't understand it - and I can't craft with concepts I don't understand!

So I did a bit of surfing, a bit of reading and rather a lot of staring at Pinterest, and saw some absolutely wonderful works of art. The first explanation of the whole concept that I read was "The industrial revolution meets science fiction" which gave me a feel for what I was aiming towards, and the second was "Victoriana with cogs" which made me feel, "Yes, I can do that!"

The trouble is, I have very little in the way of suitable STUFF, and what I do have is more suited to a feminine card than a masculine one. All I could really scrape together was a sheet of cog wheel peel offs and a set of stamps that came free with a magazine. However while rummaging, I'd turned up an acetate transparency that was already printed with distressed-looking black edges and pre-coloured  in shades of peach and purple-grey. And I just happened to have a piece of card in the same shades. So I stamped some of the images onto the acetate using a Staz-on pad (even Staz-on can smudge when you're using it on acetate, as I discovered - luckily it was one of the cogs in a corner which doesn't really show).

I used spray adhesive to mount the transparency onto white card to accentuate the colours, then attached it to my base card and added the peel off cogs. A brass key finishes off one corner, although if I'd had some more dimensional cogs I think they would have looked better.

So, a little tame maybe for real Steampunk,  and a little flat, but given my limited resources, here is my first ever deliberately made Steampunk card.

5 comments:

Julie B said...

There you go Jane, told you you could do it and a great job you made of it for a novice steampunker! I recognize the stamp set as I was thinking of using it and had stamped it out before deciding to keep with the clock theme. So glad you persevered and joined us this week at Cardz4Guyz. :)

Cazro said...

Well Jane, welcome to the world of Steampunk. So pleased you pushed yourself to complete the challenge. Your card is wonderful, I'm sure this would be very well received by the male fraternity. Great use of the freebie in your design. Thanks again for your support in our challenges at Cardz 4 Guyz. Caz

JayBe said...

Well, I wouldn't believe you struggled with this, Jane - it looks fab, well done. Thanx for sharing with us at Cardz 4 Guyz and good luck.
Hugz, Jan (DT) xx

ahlers5 said...

Love it! Wonderful steampunk design. Thanks for joining us at Cardz 4 Guyz.

Helen said...

A really great card - I have to admit I hadn't ventured in to steam punk before this challenge either!

Thanks for joining us at Cardz 4 Guyz.

Helen x