A Steampunk New Year!

Happy New Year!!  I hope you all had a safe and fabulous one.  My little household watched movies until midnight and then toasted the new year with a bottle of sparkling cider.  And while it was a relatively quiet evening for us, I did receive some fabulously entertaining text messages from a good friend of mine who (along with her husband) must have been having a fantastic time celebrating!! HAHAHA!

Now that the festivities are over, it's time to do a little creative therapy in the craft room.  I'm actually quite pleased with how today's project turned out.  I tried a new (to me) technique that I'm now TOTALLY in LOVE with!!!  And, since I was already being adventurous, I played around with some other variations of that technique and discovered all sorts of fun and interesting things!  When was the last time you "threw caution to the wind" and tried something, just to see what it would do?  I highly encourage you to try it sometime! It's quite exhilerating!! hehe. 

I tried the "BLACK ICE" technique for the first time today.  I can not even begin to tell you how incredibly AWESOME it is!!  OH MY GOSH!!! LOOOOOVE!!!!!!   It is quite literally the coolest technique ever! I was so excited about it, that I completely forgot to take a photo of just the background layer before I mounted the other overtop of it! haha.  OOOPS!!  But I do have this one where you can see a good bit of it, as well as the die cut piece that I had iced up too. 

But then, I got really excited to see if I could do the same technique on a piece that was die cut, and would it turn out the same.  The answer is, YES! And it's awesome too! haha!  The two smaller gears were cut from a sheet of copper foil that had the black ice technique used over the whole piece, but the gear cluster was cut and then black iced. 

If you've never had the pleasure of knowing what the "BLACK ICE" technique is, I'll tell you.  You start with a piece of foil paper. It's your choice which color you use.  Each will create a different effect.  I used copper foil for my project. 

The first thing you'll do is take a black Staz-on ink pad and "scrape" it down the front of the foil piece. You would want to put more emphasis on the edges to get a nice dark edge, and then lighten your touch as you go down the middle.  For the die cut piece, I tried to kinda go darker and lighter in various areas of it. 

Once you've got the black accents how you like it, use the heat tool to set the ink.   And then, you'll want to cover the whole piece with versamark.  Just take the pad and scrape it from top to bottom all the way across until you have a good even coating.  Of course, you can add texture by going lighter or heavier. 

Once your piece is covered with versamark, you'll want to pour clear embossing powder over the whole thing.  Don't forget to gently tap the back to get the excess off!

Now is where the Magic Happens!!  It is the most fantastic thing ever!!  You are going to use the heat tool to melt the clear powder over the entire piece. 

Since I was playing with the embossing powders and heat tool, I figured I should play a little bit too.  This photo shows (if you look closely) 3 different sections of embossed area.  I wanted to see what the end result would be if I mixed some of our embossing powders.  Here's what I got. 

The far right strip is just copper and black powders mixed evenly.

The middle strip is copper, black and gold with more gold than the others. 

The far left strip is the same mixture as the middle, with more copper added in. 

I actually like this mix and I really like the way it looks on my steampunk card.  It kindof gives an antique look!

 You can really see how distressed it looks around the edges of my top layer.  I just love all the texture and detail in this card! SO AWESOME!!

 The final touches to the card, were to use the oil spot stamp to give some detail and distress. I used soft suede and it worked perfectly!

Then, I stamped my sentiments.  In truth, I might not have used these sentiments with this card, but I'm using it in a display for the Geared up Garage suite and I am only using those stamps.  They still look fantastic with it, but I might have used a more whimsical sentiment otherwise.   Either way, It's a GORGEOUS card and I absolutely LOVE IT!!! 

Way to set the bar high for card samples this year, Dana!! hahaha. 

Well, there you have it my friends.  A super fantastic Father's day card made with the Geared Up Garage Suite in the brand new 2019 Spring Occasions Catalog.  It truly is one of my absolute FAVORITE masculine stamp sets.  I know you'll love it too!!

If you already have a demonstrator, make sure you go get this set! If you don't already have one,  I would truly love to be your demo and get these products sent out to you.  If you'd like to have a catalog, I can help you with that too! ;-)

Thank you so much for stopping by today! I hope you enjoyed this quick little tutorial and fabulous card!

And as always,
Happy Crafting!