July STARS and STRIPES by Sarah

Design team member Sarah has submitted this for our July STARS and STRIPES Challenge. You can play too! Go here for all the details :)

Decided to dig into the Steampunk photos taken by the very talented Robert Allard: http://raphotography.smugmug.com last March. For some reason this photo came to mind first when I saw the topic. *kabang!* lol

I loooooove this picture of all four of my boy all set and ready to fight evil daemons!

The base paper is Tim Holtz which is most of the 'stripes' for this layout. Placed the picture on the page, arranging it so the lines were coming out in a 'burst' and drew a light pencil line around the photo for a guide. Then I stamped a few gear with the Gel-a-tins: Shifting Gears set, using Gold ink and then heat embossing them in Silver. The guide meant I wasn't stamping where it wouldn't be seen: So I didn't waste any supplies or energy.

Then I took both Gold and Silver Sharpies and drew some 'ray' lines coming out, following in the same directions the stripes were already going.

Next I prepared the photo by placing it on a Light Yellow piece of Mulberry Paper, wetting around the photo, careful not to get the photo itself wet since it's a printer photo and would smudge and then tearing the paper... pulled it off in small bits and pieces to get it really long and raggedy. Then I inked the edges in Bright Yellow ink. I repeated the with Pale Orange Mulberry Paper and Bright Orange ink a little bigger than the Yellow. Attached them to the back of the picture so it looks like the boys are coming out in a Fire-Burst!

The Silver Gears were punched out with a Stampin' Up! Punch and the Copper Stars were all hand cut out using an Exacto knife from DCWV Metallic Stack Paper... yummy paper I've been hoarding. Arranged these and glued them on, then added a sprinkling of Me & My Big Ideas Icons bling-age in Red, Yellow and Orange.

The last step was cutting a My Mind's Eye rub-on title in half... used both halves over top the photo itself and added a few stick-on pearls.

I'm super-duper pleased with how this page turned out AND it's been 'Boy Approved' with an "Awe Cool Mum!" "Neato!" and "WOW!" from the crew. (The eldest nodded, that's as good as you get from the teenager now... lol)