Steampunk Hat

I have to admit, Steampunk is a bit out of my comfort zone, but when someone described it as Victorian meets Industrial, it made more sense to me :-).  So today, I'm using the new Steampunk Hat from Die-Versions as the focal point of my card.

After die cutting it out of watercolor paper, I used several Zig Clean Color Real Brush markers to color the image and just a little bit of water.  To tone it down some, I added white Wink of Stella on top.  The gears on the hat were inked using a VersaMarker, covered with Silver Bells embossing powder from Sparkle N Sprinkle and heat set.  I also added a pearl string from Mon Ami Gabby.

The background was created using white cardstock and a Dreamweaver stencil (Gears) and embossing paste.  While the embossing paste was still wet, I sprinkled Blackened Bronze and Silver Detail embossing powders on it and then heat set it.  When you heat set embossing paste, it tends to make the paste bubble and that was exactly what I wanted.  It gave it a rough texture plus the Blackened Bronze gave it a rusted look to certain spots.  To add color to the white cardstock, several Distress Stains were applied.  I kept adding different colors until I was happy with the results.  And since most embossing pastes act as a resist, the Distress Stains didn't change the color of my gears.

Some floral paper, lace and a rosette (plus a couple more layers :-) ) add my finishing touches .