From Trash to Treasure

I wanted to try some cogs I had diecut last week... Since I was planning to make a mess, I dug into the  de-stash drawer and took a miss stamped piece of card. I also ventured to something I haven't tried before... flowers! I've had a small pack of roses in a drawer waiting to be tried out, and now I'm hooked... got to get me some more :) Here's what it turned out like: quite nice, eh?

I'm posting for SanDee and Amelie's Steampunk challenge, the Country View challenge (industrial), the Things to Alter challenge (Steampunk, I hope my cardstock pieces will pass for chippies?) and the WOW challenge (anything with embossing goes). This is what I started with: a mixed media background (scrap paper glued on scrap card covered with gesso and sprays). I had stamped on it (stamps from Paperartsy), but discarded it after miss-stamping the key... it spent a few months in the drawer :)

The cogs had been die cut from thick white cardstock. They were dabbed with brown acrylic paint and heat embossed with WOW copper pearl. I adhered them to the card base and proceeded to spray with brown and black to get them to look as if they had always been there... This is the before sprays picture.

I also heated sprinkles of chunky black embossing powder (Stampendous). I wanted some of the copper too, so I made my own "chunks": I dabbed an acrylic block with embossing ink, sprinkled the powder into it and used a small brush to goo the powder into clumps. These were dropped on the card base and heated from underneath (otherwise they would fly away). The picture below shows some unmelted clumps in the foreground and melted ones near the cogs. The glued down paper pieces have boiled a bit too...

This photo has been taken in early morning light... I stamped the "smile" from Rubber Dance on a piece of cardstock and pierced through a couple of screw brads. I love how that font fits with the teeth of the cogs! Then the (rather warped) background was adhered to a 5x7 card blank with double sided tape and sewed around. 

I finished the card with a pile of goodies. The stems of the roses were twirled around a pin and I found some matching green embroidery thread. Half pearls, old mother of pearl buttons and a bronze butterfly... this won't fit in any envelope, but I love it!