…do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you…

It’s challenge time at Simply Steampunk Challenges and our theme this month is tragic love and, with this gorgeous image from Abigail Larson, Hades and Persephone 1, how could I go with any theme but Wuthering Heights.

And here's a close-up showing the beautiful image with more true to life colours.

I googled the English moors and turns out there are trees on them so I have some skeleton trees in the background to help with the ghostly and tragic mood.  I wanted to make Persephone / Cathy look like a ghost to have this resemble a dream of Heathcliff on the moors and thought to use Frosted Film for it but the stuff doesn’t work like I thought it would so no ghosts.

I did stupidly decide to go with a decoupaged scene, stupidly because this is an incredibly detailed image.  It is beautiful when coloured and done once as a 2D picture it would have been an easy colour on the train but as it is it took hours of colouring and fussy cutting and gluing.  That said, I love how this turned out.

The hours of work weren’t just in the decoupage, I also spent a lot of time on decorating the box.  I wasn’t happy with the first coat of gilding on the lace, it was too bright gold so a few more layers of colour and I was finally happy with my vintage / grungy look.  The colour doesn’t look good on the photo, it is actually a dark browny gold colour, I really need to invest in a good camera!

As this is most definitely not a card I’m entering it in the anything but a card challenge at All Craft’s Challenges.  The beautiful moment captured in the image speaks to me of love, that elemental love of Hades and Persephone or Cathy and Heathcliff so I’m entering my card in the Cheerful Stamp Pad’s Love / Valentine challenge.  And as I have an SVG cut, several skeleton trees in fact, I am also linking this at the current love challenge at Creative Cutting Challenge.

Now head on over to Simply Steampunk Challenges and check out what my awesome teamies have created using Simply B Stamps’ images and theme tragic love.  Hopefully you’ll be inspired to get steamy and create a project, remember you don’t need to use a Simply B Stamp, although we do love to see them, but you do need to create a Steampunk style project.

Ingredients:

Copics

Skin E11, E21, E50, E51, E53 (E02, E13 cheeks)

Lips E11, R46

Hair E23, E25, E27, E29, E49, T4, T6, T8, T10, 100

Persephone’s Dress BV20, BV23, BV25, BV29

Hades’ Outfit W00, W1, W3, W5, W7

Moon BV31, BV34, 0

Rocks W3, W5, W7, 0

Chalks & Powders etc

Fran-tage Embossing Enamel – Aged Ochre

Dies, SVGs & Templates etc

The Crafter’s Workshop 6x6 Template – Mini Branches

Silhouette SVG – Skeleton Tree

Embellishments

Kaisercraft Mini Paper Blooms – Aubergine

Kaisercraft Paper Blooms – Aubergine

Prima Junkyard Findings – Heart Gears

Words or Whatever Chipboard – Cog & Gear Corner Flourish (small & large)

Inks & Paints etc

Lindy’s Stamp Gang Flat Fabio – Tweedle Dee Denim

Lindy’s Stamp Gang Starburst – Cocoa Bean Copper & Midnight Raven Rendezvous

Rub’nBuff – Spanish Copper

StazOn – Black

Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Faded Jeans, Vintage Photo & Walnut Stain

Tim Holtz Distress Paint – Vintage Photo

Viva Décor Inka Gold – Graphite, Lava Red & Old Gold

Papers

American Crafts Cardstock – Kraft

BoBunny Woodland Winter – Frosty Morning

Ribbons & Trims etc

Lace from LSS

Stamps

Simply B Stamps – Hades and Persephone 1

Challenges

All Crafts Challenges February / March – Anything but a card

The Cheerful Stamp Pad #79 – “Love / Valentine”

Creative Cutting Challenge #27 – Love

Thanks for stopping by!

…than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world

I’ve got another one of my awesome Simply Steampunk Challenges teamies Steampunked by Betty to show you today, this one is Louise.

This picture shows the card as it actually stands (colours aren’t so good though as this one’s from the iPad).

 

The thing about stamps is that you can often interpret them in different ways, Louise was drawn by Betty with a big gun but to me it looked more like an old-fashioned parchment holder, the sort you’d put a map in.  And with those goggles on her head, well, she just had to be an aviatrix, of the hot air balloon variety.  So out came that great chippie from my huge Twiddleybitz stash and serendipitously I found some Tim Holtz compass coins in my stash when looking for a stamp block to do the border stamping.  This is how bad my memory and stash are organised, I’d completely forgotten about those compass coins, they were in an unopened packet but they were just perfect for my card.

I thought a tent fold card would be perfect for showing off my image and chippie; I followed two tuts to make this one, Beate Johns’ one on Splitcoast Stampers and another by Elaine of Crafticious, who did the twist of having a step outside.  I’ve also used a few of different techniques on my card, I’ve stamped a border to the brown paper using Walnut Stain Distress Ink, on the right side I added some mica for added shine and interest, I’ve also embossed the circle frame and distressed the paper parchment I made for the sentiment.  While Steampunk Louise comes with a sentiment it is more suited to the image with a gun so I went googling for hot air balloon related quotes and found this one by a motivational speaker.  I don’t usually go in for that stuff but the quote was just perfect.  Being a Steampunk themed card I had to go for gears instead of clouds in the sky for the background.

Over at SanDee&amelie’s Steampunk Challenge they’ve got a use your new stash challenge going on.  It’s not really a stash item but a tool but the Papertrey Ink die is new for me, it came fresh out of the packet for its first ever use on this card, perfect with its starry sprinkling I thought.  Just in case you head off to buy it though, I must warn you it is two layers only, the third layer of Antique Linen cardstock was hand cut by me to match the rest of the card.

Still in the using your stash theme, Our Creative Corner has a no more shopping sins’ challenge going where you need to get out a hoarded item and use it on your card.  My chippie definitely qualifies for that, if I’d had more that matched I’d have added them to this card because I seriously have a whole box of Twiddleybitz, see, not just any old chippies; I am an exclusive chippie hoarder.  I bought heaps at a local paper crafting show where I first discovered Twiddleybitz, then more when my LSS started stocking it and I’ve used next to none.  I keep saving them as they are all so beautiful but this was the perfect card to use at least one of them on, now I think I need to go buy a replacement…

Ingredients:

Copics

Skin E50, E51, E53 (cheeks E02)

Eyes B000, N2

Lips R29, R37, R46

Hair E08, E18, E93, E95

Outfit B91, B93, B95, B97, B99

Goggles B26, B28, B29, E31, E33, E35

Map Holder E31, E33, E35

Dies & SVGs etc

Papertrey Ink – Notched Star Banner

Spellbinders Nestabilities – Grand Circles

Embellishments

Gears from stash

Tim Holtz Idea-ology – Compass Coins, Game Spinners & Timepieces

Twiddleybitz – Small Hot Air Balloon

Inks, Paints & Powders etc

Krylon Leafing Pen – Copper

Mica – Aged Gold

Ranger Embossing Powder – Copper

Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Antique Linen & Walnut Stain

Viva Décor Inka-Gold – Cobalt Blue

Papers

Core’dinations Tim Holtz Distress Cardstock – Antique Linen

Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells Patterns & Solids

Marion Smith Nirvana – Up And Away

Papermania Chronology – Blue Gears

Ribbons & Trims etc

Jute Cord from stash

Stamps

Papermania Urban Stamps – Looking Glasses

Simply B Stamps Steampunk – Steampunk Louise

Challenges

Our Creative Corner – No More Shopping Sins!

SanDee&amelie’s Steampunk Challenge – Use Your New Stash!

Thanks for stopping by!