Hi lovely CraftersWell this is my first ever blog, and hopefully you will be inspired and ready to do some crafting. I love everything steampunk especially with some rust thrown in, I have used our new large sized plywood book box for this project.Firstly I played around with a selection of cogs and clock pieces, this can take me some time adding more elements, taking some away until I am happy with the layout. Once happy I glue everything in place using a heavy gel medium but any tacky glue or hot glue will do. I started at this point to add in some torn book pages, it might have been easier doing this first but hey ho. Here I have added some elements to the back page, and glued them in place.Once everything had dried, I went over all the elements with black Gesso leaving some of the book pages exposed.At this point I like to add a little bit more texture using beads. I use a gel medium as it's easier to embed the beads into it and I use different sizes and really the colour of the beads at this point doesn't matter as we will be adding colour later. I have also used some metal parts that I found in the shed, some wingnuts, bolts and washers, Shhhh don't tell the husband.Once it's dry it's time to rust it up. I have used a selection of chalk paints, in brown, red, black, mustard and teal. I sponged on the various colours to get the effect that I was happy with. I then mixed some brown chalk paint with some Cinnamon , not cinnamon paint actual cinnamon and applied quite thickly over some of the cogs. It give a good rusty texture to it and also smell nice. I forgot to mention the drips down the side of the book are made from hot glue asI do like the effect it gives.My last step to the outside of the book was to add a final large cog, clock hand,wings and scrabble letters all of which I added chalk paints to using a bit more of the teal colour. The inside of the book was fairly straight forward I just glued on a selection of papers , which I ripped to size. I always rip my papers as you get a softer edge, I then distressed using chalk paints.I hope you have enjoyed this project, it was great fun to make and can't wait to do another book. I have added photos of some of our Lasercut elements that I have used in this project.Keep on crafting.Thanks Wendy. x

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