In August, my Saturday Stamp Club decided that our monthly card swap theme would be “Steam Punk”. What is Steam Punk you may ask? Well as Emilee our August Hostess explained, Steam Punk is an art form featuring images of industrialized steam powered machinery. Victorian Steam Punk features gears and cogs. American West Steam Punk features trains. The fictional inventions of Jules Verne conjure up images of Steam Punk. Do an internet search for “Steam Punk”, and you’ll find lots of ideas and inspiration!
Ok, here we go! Here are two Steam Punk Christmas trees I came up with for the swap:
I used copper roof flashing for the trees. Copper roof flashing is available at any home improvement store. It comes in rolls and can be found in the roofing department. It has a light cardboard backing, almost more like a heavy-weight paper. It does not peel off the flashing. The flashing can easily be cut with scissors or dies and can be embossed with embossing folders. It is kind of expensive-around 30.00 for a 12″ x 20′ roll. But, it will last for many projects.
I cut a piece of flashing and then embossed it using my Big Shot and Clockworks embossing folder (non Stampin’ Up! and purchased specifically for this challenge).
For the first tree, I folded the flashing to form the tree. For the 2nd tree, I simply cut squares of flashing and then cut them in half on the diagonal, therefore getting parts for 2 trees out of 1 piece of flashing. I “aged” the copper flashing somewhat my sponging on some green Stazon ink.
The background started out as cardboard packaging for a set of embellishments I had in my crafting stash. I simply photo copied it on regular computer paper (since I needed to make 8 for the swap and wanted to keep the original cardboard packaging), then stamped some gears and cogs from the Clockworks and Sense of Time stamp sets and sponged the edges using copper metallic ink. I added a side strip of coppery metallic designer series paper(retired from Stampin’ Up!, and I no longer have the packaging, and can’t remember what the pack was called) to the edge of the copied background and then adhered it all to my Very Vanilla card base. The star, tree base and matting for the greeting are also punched out of this coppery metallic DSP. All three are popped up on the final card using Dimensionals. The greeting is from Joyous Celebrations and was embossed on Very Vanilla card stock using copper embossing powder.
I added some sticky-backed glimmery red embellishments to the first tree. The embellishments for the 2nd tree are copper jewelry findings secured to the roof flashing by brads.
Supplies Used (all supplies are Stampin’ Up! unless otherwise noted)
Stamp Sets: Joyous Occasions (for the greeting), Clock Works and Sense of Time (for the background)
Ink: Copper Metallic (non SU!), Green Stazon (non SU!), Versamark
Paper: Very Vanilla, copper metallic designer series paper,computer paper
Accessories: Copper roof flashing (non SU!), Big Shot, Clockworks embossing folder (non SU!), star, large and medium oval punches, copper embossing powder, heat tool, paper piercing tool and mat, copper jewelry findings (non SU!), Old Olive brads, sticky-backed jewels (non SU!), Dimensionals, cardboard packaging (non SU!)
