Railroad Stations

I grew up on the east coast of America where trains were everywhere. I didn't start out to remembering those days of course.....but it was kinda fun.

The talented and lovely Hels Sheridan, of Sunday Stampers fame is celebrating her 200th edition of challenging us to make a little something with at least a bit of stamping on it. Fittingly the challenge this week was to include numbers. So I started with that premise and the idea to make a companion piece to a tag I created for the April tag class at Stamp Cache. The steampunk tag was all browns and golds and so I wanted to do a piece in greys and blacks. And along the way I used several Tim Holtz techniques, so I'm doing double duty and entering it in the Simon Says Stamp challenge of do any "Lord Tim" technique. Check.

I did get a jump start on the tag by using the amazing 7 Dots Dreamer paper collection. It is truly awesome paper. I know I'm going to have to buy more. I cut a tag out of the paper, misted it and then used Pumice Stone and Old Paper stains to give a bit more character. I embossed a piece of black paper with the clock embossing folder, sanded it, covered that with Pumice Stone stain and then a bit of Picket Fence stain for good measure. Grunge paper painted with a silver dabber was cut with the On the Edge Steampunk die. I used my finger to smear Pumice Stone, Walnut Stain, and Black Soot on to age it. I rolled the checkerboard stamp from Ultimate Grunge through Pumice Stone Distress Ink and randomly covered the background. I think that's when it started to look like a railroad station to me...lots of brick and blocks in Pennsylvania.

Since the challenge was about number I thought instead of saving the very fun 1/2 I would actually use it. Once again I pulled out the "can't make art without it" favorite color of Jane Davies who teaches a fabulous class on painting and collage I took at last year's Art & Soul Retreat.   I mixed Quinacridone Nickel Azo Gold and Black Soot stain and black acrylic paint on my craft sheet and colored 'em up. I then used the stamps I made last month from my dies and dipped them in the same paint/stain concoction. I can't get over the way the fluid acrylic creates it's very own shadow effect.....

To finish up I used even more the paint/stain concoction with some Transparent Red Oxide fluid acrylic to color up the faucet, hung some chain, put a pit more on the top of the tag and I had been transported. After all the light colors I've been using it was fun to get grungy again.

Enjoy.

Tag 8 - Steampunk Christmas

oooo....love this tag. Steampunk is so much fun -- frankly I like anything where more is better -- so I just gathered things on my table and went to town.

I had just gotten the stripped background stamp from Studio 490 and so used that and think it was just right....I like that it looks a little frayed around the edges. I embossed it in white and then used Iced Spruce, Evergreen Bough, and Festive Berries to ink the tag. I thought it still need something so I took out the numbers stamp from one of Tim's background stamp collections, and used Frayed Burlap stain on it. The effect was dribs and drabs of brown onto of the stripes and it help make it look a bit more vintage.  Kind of hard to see in the photo tho....

Next I used the Graphic 45 stamp for the lady's head and embossed in on grunge board in black. I inked her with Frayed Burlap and I added watch parts to her hair for texture and interest. The large gold gear was sitting on my table from where I tried the technique that Tim talked about on his blog a while ago, and I had already painted the smaller gears black, so I just added some gold ink and scuffed them up. I used a clock face, face down on the large gear, I liked the look of the solid sphere under the  flower. I added more bits and pieces, remembered to spread out the color red and finally said....enough is enough.