My First Adventures in Steampunk!!!!

Once upon a time, I had a career in Historic Preservation.  I was an architectural historian and historian, and while I worked on almost every conceivable type of building, landscape, district, and structure -- I found myself drawn to industrial buildings and structures like textile mills and bridges.  Maybe that is why I am so fascinated by the Steampunk trend in scrapping.  It reminds me of a time when huge, noisy, smoking machines were housed in vast buildings with lavish architectural details and when bridges were works of art and not just a way to get across water.

Steampunk to me is the iron fist in the velvet glove, a steel magnolia, it is, well it is the movie The Wild, Wild West with Kenneth Branagh wearing a brocade waistcoat while manuevering his outlandish mechanical inventions.  It is chainlink and pearls, gears with jewels, it is wings on things that were never meant to fly.  Steampunk is hard and soft, vintage and futuristic.  I may never really master Steampunk as a scrapping style, but I am sure going to have fun trying!

This is my first foray into Steampunk as I braved the Steampunk Challenge on Scrapbook.com in July -- Prima paintable, lots of Tim Holtz distress ink, transparency of an industrial scene, metal elements from Flamingo Scraps Steampunk/Vintage grab bag, distressed, embellished, and inked picture is of my great grandmother

And this is my second for the same challenge this month -- Webster's Pages Seaside Retreat, dimensional seahorse stickers with Tim Holtz grunge board wings and gears, elements highlighted with Crackle Glossy Accents, image of woman and seahorse from internet images is printed on canvas, covered with Antique Linen distress stickles, and embellished.

Since then I have been experimenting with different materials and textures to create Steampunk embellishments of my own!

My experiments in Steampunk Embellishments!

Ranger metal slide mount frame with glass plates and keepsake pocket insert -- vintage image of gears with tiny gears in the pocket and a gear on a jump ring and torn strip of silk for finishing touches

Similar embellie with shell image, tiny shells in pocket, and shell on curled wire and vintage lace

Vintage watch  crystals with tiny watch pieces embedded in them using clear and sepia Glossy Accents -- Crackle Glossy Accents creates a fabulous effect as well!

Whether you go all out with Steampunk, or just incorporate some details into your layouts and paper crafting,  it is an exciting and fun style to play with.  It will really stretch your imagination and creativity and add fabulous texture and dimension to any project!!  And just look around you -- the Steampunk influence is showing up everywhere -- fashion, home decor, and my personal favorite, the new Blue Plate Mayonnaise commercials!!!