October's Goodie Box was 'Steampunk'!

Hi everyone. It's been some time since my last post but I do have some very exciting crafting news to share with you very soon and which has kept me very busy! Until then, here is a mini canvas I made recently with the contents of last month's Artful Days Mixed Media Goodie Box! Available here. It's  like Christmas morning when I receive my monthly Goodie Box. Each time it's a wonderful surprise and each box is full to the brim of delicious products chosen so carefully by Julie Bell!

I had such fun making this. I love it when a project just evolves. This canvas, as you can see, is  influenced by the wonderfully talented Anna Dabrowska! I've enjoyed taking a couple of her classes and really appreciate what I learned from her about balance and the layering of embellishments. Although October's Goodie box was literally full to the brim of all sorts of lovely stash, I really took a shine to the metal embellishments, wooden cogs, gears and wheels.  

 

The only non-box items that I used for the canvas are the stamps: text ( Seth Apter) and skeleton head (Visible Image). However, as I have already made two other projects with the contents of the box (and have a partly made, paper bag journal I have yet to complete), I have also borrowed a couple of items from previous Goodie boxes. But that's the beauty of subscribing! So, where did I begin? Actually, before I made any projects, I began by taking all the cogs, wheels and gears in the box and making them look rusty. I've found the best paints for this technique are DecoArt fluid acrylics, mainly because of their vibrancy and transparency. I borrowed Sheila Landry's technique that I found on her YouTube video: Faux rust technique on wooden gears. Clear and helpful. I show a few of them here:

Now for the canvas. I used DecoArt fluid acrylics for all the painting, starting with my favourite go-to colours:pinks, reds, oranges and yellows. I used the DecoArt tinting base (thanks Kate Crane for that tip) to help produce darker and lighter patches. I needed this to be bright to contrast later with the more industrial oranges and browns in the lower half of the canvas.

I then used a favourite Indigo Blu stamp (circle dot background) to stamp all over the canvas, even though I intended to paint over most of it. 

Included in the Steampunk Goodie box are a couple of zips. I love the idea of using the zip to 'reveal' a hidden layer, so once I'd carefully adhered the zip  part way up the canvas, I then painted out the lower half of the canvas with DecoArt Carbon Black fluid acrylic. 

Next, I chose one of the 8"x8" sheets of paper (almost card actually - a good weight) and cut it up in various rectangles. I stuck these over the lower half of the canvas - leaving little gaps between)  along with the Kraft paper punch outs (previous Goodie box) from the hexagon die cuts I was going to use later. Once these were stuck down, I used a variety of DecoArt fluid acrylics to paint over the lower half until I was pleased with the colour blend and the overall effect: wanting a more industrial-looking background. 

Now for the fun part. This takes me ages: arranging and rearranging all the elements until I'm happy with the balance and overall effect. Once I was satisfied with my arrangement, I stuck everything down with a heavy 3D gel. Finally, I mixed a little of the Rose Gold Primary Elements powder from Prima with some water and sprayed this across all the elements and the lower half of the canvas. The very final touch was a skeleton head (unusual for me) and some text, and it was complete! 

Now just a couple of close up photos to finish. 

Pop over to see more wonderful art work by the design team, using the Mixed Media Goodie boxes Here. I hope you have enjoyed this post and would welcome a comment to show you passed by.  Until the next time, happy crafting!