Sunday, October 12, 2014

From Trash to Treasure

From Trash to Treasure...I found a broken journal at one of my local Michael's and couldn't resist buying it.  I had to see what I could do.  Looking at it the only thing wrong was that the elastic closure was pulled out from where it should have been tucked into the book. That's a slightly easy fix if things go the way they should. 

I brought the journal home, repaired the elastic (thankfully everything did go the way it should,) and got to work on painting. I painted and painted and painstakingly painted with the tiniest brush I had. 

All in all it took me about four to five days of painting on and off.  The intricacy and the tiny details made my eyes go buggy.  I had to do it in sections and at intervals to give my eyes a break. 
Looking at the brown and the gold I immediately thought that this book was screaming to be a steampunk book. I set off to find a digital steampunk stamp that would be a perfect fit for this book.

I came across that stamp on StitchyBearStamps by a creator known as BB Kakes.

http://stitchybearstamps.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=11_31&products_id=3127

Steampunk - 3 pc set

I purchased it, read the TOU to make sure it I was within the right to use it for this project, and printed it out a few time on some Copic marker friendly paper.

Why a few times you might, well it's so I can use one test colors and play with, one to lay out my colors, figure out shading and how I'm going to finish it, and the last one to do my final colors on.

Here's my second one with my colors listed so I know which markers to use where on the final.


And here is the final all colored and fussy cut out.

 On the final image I used Tim Holtz's Distress Stains and Paints for the gears and metal. I used some Ranger Glossy Accents on the glasses and the face of the pocket watch after shading in the gray color to give them the glass look.

Then it was off to the book....

I used some Prima Marketing Engraver Collection "Cesello" (845315) paper as the back ground.  Glued my stamp just off center.  I placed the "Jouranl" sticker from Prima's Engraver collection (563479) so that the end of the sticker lined up with the edge of her shoulder.
I used some Prima flowers for embellishment (Black rose -552619, Small maroon roses - 553302.)  On one of the small roses I pulled out the center of the rose and added a button (550776.) The key paper clip (564681) I cut the clip part off of to make it look like just a key.  I then added miscellaneous mechanicals, gears from Tim Holtz and Bead Landing along with some clock hands and key hole from Bead Landing.

Here's the journal all finished: