Pay It Forward Projects

As promised last Spring, I finally got moving on my Pay It Forward projects a few weeks back (good thing the deadline was the end of this year eh?) This was an art swap with Kathy at Kluless, Karen at Winton Rose Paper Creations and Sylvia at SMD Paper Arts.

Now that each one has received my creations, I can share them here with you. I will do another post on what wonderful goodies they sent me!

I wanted to make similar, yet personalized items these artists could use - so I created flip style note pads in a Steampunk format. I am constantly making To Do lists when I create, so I hope they can utilize these pads in their studios too!

I had promised to use some of Tim's awesome products, so I gathered what I thought I might need:

I began by printing off 30 sheets of lined paper for each note pad. After cutting to size and punching three holes on top, I ran them through my sewing machine (without thread) to perforate so they will tear off after use. Then I cut two pieces of 9" x 4.5" chipboard for front and back covers, added a sheet of Grungeboard to each front panel textured with Tim's "Gears" Sizzix embossing folder, punched holes and painted them with black acrylic paint.

Using my Cuttlebug, I chose appropriate die cuts by Tim; "Weathered Clock", "Steampunk" On The Edge die, "Caged Bird" and "Gadget Gears" and punched them out from Tim's Grungeboard.

Metal gears were pulled from my stash - and various placements and layers were tested out using other embellishments I picked out.

Each book was designed with the recipient in mind:  of course Kathy at Kluless (The Button Queen) had to have buttons on hers - so I Steampunked them up by attaching them to metal gears and colouring them with Pitch Black Alcohol Ink.

Elements were adhered to the painted chipboard covers with both Glossy Accents and Scotch Quick Dry glue.

After attaching the various embellishments, a coat of flat black acrylic paint was laid down over everything.

And then using Inka Gold Metallic Rub in copper

I rubbed it lightly over the top to bring out the textures and shapes.

Each book also has a chain with charms and Tim's Philosophy Tags specific to each design. I used Glossy Accents to adhere a stamped image (from Tim's stamp sets) to the base of his Cash Keys. They were attached to the book using Ring Fasteners and all were rubbed with more copper metallic paste.

I finished them off with a few brads then laced them together with black ribbon.

So here they are:

First, for Kathy at Kluless, a design including the aforementioned buttons as well as Tim's "Caged Bird" birdcage and metal bird charm:

"Steampunk Buttons"

Karen in Australia loves Steampunk too so I added a Memory Box die called "Vintage Bicycle" to her clocks and gears.

"Steampunk Classic"

Sylvia at SMD Paper Creations has a lot of flowers in her artwork, so I thought she would like Tim's Trellis die and a metal flower spray from his metal charm set called "Nature Adornments".

"Steampunk Floral"

These three were mailed off, but of course I HAD to make one for myself too!

Do you recognize this shape? I am a recent "Whovian"... if you are too, you may know this as The Doctor's "Time And Relative Dimension In Space" ship... or TARDIS for short.

Yep. I Steampunked the Tardis. If you look closely, the button I used for my book says "London". Since The Doctor is a Time Lord, the addition of the vintage clock face was appropo.

I used Tim's Frosted Film for the windows and printed out the sign from the Police Box for my Cash Keys charm. I also used a clear gem for the light on the top of the box.

Once I was able to figure out just what the heck I was going to send out for my projects, it was great fun to create! I am so glad each and every one agreed to this Pay It Forward swap. I hope they liked them as much as I liked creating them!

"Steampunk Tardis"