Steampunk Clock Face

Today I worked on some clock face pieces to embellish my steampunk mirror. I made some out of shrink plastic (not photographed yet) which came out quite small – with the shrink plastic only being 8 inches wide, you are limited as to how large you can make things. I wanted some clock face pieces which were quite large, and which would blend in with the rusty background of the frame, between which I could adhere my various gears, screw heads, clock hands, etc.

I decided to make a clock face from chipboard (I used the back of an old cereal packet) and cut this on Jiminy Cricut, at 8 inches in diameter, and then proceeded to colour and distress it.

I’ve been longing to try my new Tim Holtz Distress Stains that I got at the craft show recently, and also the Distress Embossing Powders – I have already tried the Black Soot one with my shrink plastic gear wheels, but today I wanted to use the other one I’ve got, which is Vintage Photo.

The first step was to coat the clock face all over with Walnut Stain Distress Stain, and then to daub on Vintage Photo randomly. Finally I daubed on Black Soot randomly, rubbing it off with a paper towel to make it subtle.

Then I stamped it randomly, using three different Tim Holtz grunge stamps, using archival black ink. In this photo, I’ve left the ink on the stamps to show up their design better.

The next step was to add the Vintage Photo Distress Embossing Powder. To apply this, I stamped with another Tim Holtz grunge stamp with Versamark, and then added the embossing powder and zapped it with the heat gun. For this photo, so that the stamp design would show up, I have applied some Black Soot Distress Ink to the stamp.

This distress embossing powder gives a lovely rusty effect. This particular stamp gives just the blotchy, spotted effect I wanted.

To add a bit of shine, I daubed on some Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint in Rock Crystal (the clear, colourless one), randomly here and there around the clock face. Unfortunately this doesn’t show up too well on the photo – it’s pretty subtle anyway, and it’s always hard to catch sparkly, shiny or iridescent surfaces on camera.

The clock face is now getting a lovely rusty, weathered look which will go well on my project. The final step was to ink the edges with Tim Holtz Distress Inks, first Vintage Photo, and then a little Black Soot around the edges.

I’ve now got most of the embellishments ready to start working on the frame itself. It is already painted with black gesso and the green acrylic paint mix that I prepared as a verdigris layer.

Today I also rubbed some patina Rub’n Buff onto the Friendly Plastic embellishments I made the other day and this is a pretty close match to my paint mix. Once I’ve finished painting the rust effect onto the frame I can start sticking everything down and adding rust to the clock parts, screw heads, etc. and add a bit of chain and one of the charms I’ve made.

Watch this space! I am also going to do a steampunk mirror with panels of embossed metal with alcohol ink and maybe a bit more rust, and perhaps repeat the idea on my original rust ATC. I like the idea of embossing metal, colouring it with alcohol inks and cutting bits out.