Friday Feature - a little steam

Hello friends.  I've been doing some monthly challenges on the Motley Soul Mixed Media Art blog.  February's challenge was to make 20 4"x4" heart cards.  In other words, a 4"x4" card with at least one heart on it, and each one needed to be different.  Mine are all shown on my blog, lilacs & butterflies, tagged 20 hearts.  This is a scheduled post, so at the time of this writing (Feb. 25), including this heart today, I have 15 finished.  Hopefully, I'll get five more done before the end of the month.  It's been a real challenge for me, because I don't normally use hearts very much. 

For this one, I decided to go with a steampunk theme, something that doesn't come naturally for me, although I find it fascinating. 

The base of the card is made from cereal box chipboard. I then cut a 4" square of card stock, cut it at an angle and covered each piece with wide duct tape.  After trimming the excess, I ran each piece through my cuttlebug, one using diamond plate embossing folder and the other using riveted metal embossing folder.  Then, using a cotton ball to make sure the ink got down into the crevices, I dabbed alcohol inks (black, gold, copper, and silver) all over the pieces and then rubbed some of it off with a paper towel.  The pieces were then attached to the card base. 

I cut a heart from cereal box, the die cut a bunch of gears with gadget gears & mini gears dies, as well as the clock hands from weathered clock, from cereal box.  I glued a bunch of the smaller gears to the heart and trimmed off any that extended beyond the edge of the heart.  Then I placed some metal foil tape over the gears and pressed the tape down into the crevices.  I used a stylus to get the tape tight around the gears.  I trimmed the tape to about 1/4" around the heart and folded it over to the back side.  Then I used the same technique with the alcohol inks on the heart.  I also used a sanding block to take off some of the ink.  Then I glued the heart to the background. 

I wanted a clock element without actually putting a clock on the piece, so this was also made from gears.  I glued two together for extra strength.  The same alcohol ink technique was used on these pieces as well.  The clock hands were too long, so I just trimmed them to a point, short enough to look right with the gears.  Glue and a brad hold the clock together. 

At this point I was really loving my card, but I felt like something was lacking.  Even though each part has a unique finish, there was still a sameness to the whole piece, and I really thought it needed an accent color.  Hence, the red heart, which was cut from red card stock and strengthened with cereal box chipboard.  I wrote 'hot' on it with a Pitt pen and then generously coated it with glossy accents, which I have a tendency to touch before it's dry and leave finger prints, so I made myself leave it alone and let it dry overnight. 

I used black quilling paper and a quilling tool to roll up some tiny paper beads to dangle from the heart on some black thread. I coated them with decoupage medium. 

I'm really happy with how it turned out. 

Many of the products used here can be purchased at Outlaw Women Scrapbook Emporium. 

Thanks for stopping by.