Light Up Your Life....

Hello friends and Happy Monday everyone...

Hope you all had a great weekend and looking forward to the week ahead! Thank you to everyone who joined in with last week's SSS Monday Challenge, it's always lovely to see what you've made and this week, we challenge you to RUST IT UP with our brand new theme!

So, however you choose to create some rusty effects on your projects, we hope you'll play along and share all your makes.

Of course, I was in my element with this theme, who doesn't love some rusty, crusty goodness and I chose to create a tag using Tim Holtz, Sizzix and Stampers Anonymous products to build up all those layers.

So, let's get started...the new challenge is about to begin!

Before I take you through the creative process of the tag, I wanted to list the colours of Distress Paint that I use to add the rusty appearance to each of the metal pieces. These are a combination of Rusty Hinge, Vintage Photo, Black Soot, Ground Espresso and Evergreen Bough ~ each paint is layered over one another, but remember to dry between layers as you don't want to end up muddying the colours.

Moving onto the tag, I used a Mini Etcetera Tag as my base and applied some Design Tape from the Humidor Set around each side of the tag.

Now the fun begins and some of you might remember that a while back I created a box using a faux metal technique which you can read all about here, a technique that I absolutely love and I thought it would be perfect for this theme but this time, instead of using a base of Foil Metal Sheets as I did in the previous tutorial, I used Tim's champagne coloured Metallic Kraft Card from stash 3 and after cutting the 8" x 8" sheet down to approx 16 x 11cm, this will allow for a border around the outside edge of the tag, I ran the first sheet of metallic card through my machine in the Sizzix Mechanics 3D Embossing Folder by Tim Holtz. You can see the depth of the embossing that this folder achieves ~ it's amazing and so touchy feely!

I then cut a further sheet of the metallic kraft card but this time 4 x 11cm and then embossed this panel using the Foundry 3D Embossing Folder.

I now have my two embossed panels but need to make them look vintage and to do this, I used Distress Paints, starting with Black Soot which I applied all over the surface of both panels of card before wiping away the excess paint.

After gently heat drying the painted surface, don't overheat ~ I added some more layers, Ground Espresso and Evergreen Bough ~ each time wiping away the excess paint and drying between the layers.

Once I was happy with the colour, I attached the embossed panels to my tag, placing the Mechanics piece at the top....

...and the Foundry piece along the bottom.

To add even more rusty goodness and texture, I applied the Emboss It Dabber around the edge of the tag and used Chunky Rust Embossing Powder from Emerald Creek. Sprinkle the powder over the the embossing ink, tap away the excess and then heat emboss.

I now have my base tag ready to decorate....

...and started with the Voltage die to die cut each part from chipboard before applying some Grit Paste to each of the pieces to add some texture to the finished die cut. Once the paste was dry, I primed all the die cut pieces with gesso and then painted each of them with a base of Black Soot Distress Paint, heat dried the paint and followed through with Evergreen Bough, Peacock Feathers and Rusty Hinge ~ just building the layers of paint. Once the final layer was dry, I then added the Chunky Rust Embossing Powder to the edges to add some more texture.

I used Matte Collage Medium to adhere each of the die cut pieces together to make up the Voltage Gauge, placing a piece of silver metallic kraft card between the top and bottom layers that will show through the aperture window of the Voltage gauge. I then mounted the die onto a further piece of chipboard that will act as a baseboard for the die cut, and painted this square panel in the same colours as the gauge.

For the numbers, I painted the curved die cut piece with neutral coloured Distress Paints and then stamped the numbers to create the dial, using the stamp from The Professor set.

Attach in the window of the die cut and then, paint the indicator pointer using Candied Apple and Black Soot Distress Paint, attach and add a Hardware Head, again rusted up with a little Distress Paint. I also added the number 59, which is taken from the Tim Holtz Special Delivery Remnant Rubs set.

Now it's time to build up the scene and after creating my ledge which is made up of various lengths of the Bracket and Pinked Etcetera Trims. I applied some Crackle Paste over the top of the 'ledge' and  once the paste was dry, I used Pumice Stone and Gathered Twigs Distress Crayons to accentuate the crackle before attaching the ledge to the tag with Matte Collage Medium.

I attached the Voltage gauge to the tag, together with a Paper Doll standing to the right that I colour tinted with Distress Marker Pens...

...and also layered some ephemera pieces from the Snippets Ephemera set behind the die cut.

In the photo below you can see the depth that I've got on this piece which is all created by using foam pads to add height and dimension.

Along the ledge, I added some Mummy Cloth, dyed with Pumice Stone and Antique Linen Distress Spray Stains and then placed some 'rusted up' Sprocket Gears into the arrangement and added a lightbulb, a piece of Tim Holtz idea-ology from a while back, that I had in my stash.

In the centres of a couple of gears, I added a star adornment which I painted with Evergreen Bough Distress Paint.

Just below the ledge, I added a drawer pull and placed the word Admission, taken from the Clippings Stickers and popped this inside. I added two hardware heads to appear as if it's bolted onto the tag.

To complete the tag, I added one of the Foundry adornments and attached a Hinge Clip to the bottom of the metal piece before attaching it to my tag.

So, that's my project for this week all done and dusted and I hope you've enjoyed how I created the rusty elements of this piece ~ it's not been the easiest of projects to photograph, I bow down to anyone who can get a good photo of metallic card but I hope I've managed to share just how much shine there is in this project...

Don't forget, if you would like to see more inspiration from my talented teamies over on the challenge blog and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp and you can join in up to 5 times, which means you could have 5 chances to win. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in and good luck....

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by today and hope to see you again soon, love Emma xxx

Recipe for project:

Tim Holtz/Sizzix: Foundry 3D Embossing Folder, Mechanics 3D Embossing Folder, Voltage
Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous: The Professor, Mini Etcetera Tag, Etcetera Trims Bracket and Pinked
Distress Paint: Ground Espresso, Black Soot, Evergreen Bough, Rusty Hinge, Vintage Photo, Peacock Feathers, Candied Apple
Distress Crayons: Gathered Twigs, Pumice Stone
Distress Spray Stain: Pumice Stone, Antique Linen

Idea-ology: Hardware Heads, Sprocket Gears, Mini Sprocket Gears, Mummy Cloth, Paper Dolls, Snippets Ephemera, Mini Hardware Pulls, Clippings Stickers, Hinge Clips, Humidor Design Tape, Foundry Adornments, Star Adornments

Mediums: Matte Collage Medium, Grit Paste, Chunky Rust Embossing Powder, Emboss It Dabber
Surfaces: Metallic Kraft Stash, Metallic Kraft Stash 3
Glass Media Mat

Heat Gun
Big Shot
Lightbulb from my own stash