Steam Punk Altered Clock for 'Get Altered with eclectic Paperie'.

Good afternoon everyone on this cold and blustery day here in the UK. I've been cosily tucked away in my crafty attic, working on my design team piece for the 'Get Altered With eclectic Paperie Challenge'. The challenge starts on the first Thursday of every month and this month, it was the turn of the extremely talented Erin to choose a topic. No prizes for guessing what she picked, yes that's right 'Altered Clocks', but there is a prize of $15 for one lucky entrant to spend in Kim's wonderful eclectic Paperie shop. So dig those old clocks out, get altering and hop over to the eP blog, where you can link up your entry and see Erin's amazing work, along with some other fabulous design team creations. It's truly amazing how some of these clocks have been transformed. So here is my offering, those of you who visit me regularly, may recognize the resemblance to the Steam Punk Box I made a while ago. I so love using the embossed and inked metal foil tape method, that I couldn't resist matching my clock to the box. So here's a few pics to show how I got started. As usual I launched into the project before I reached for my camera, but the first photos show the clock in the initial paint stages with a few cogs placed on just to give me an idea of the look I wanted to achieve.

I used a cheaply bought clock and painted over the original design with Claudine Hellmuth Studio Gesso in white. I then painted a couple of areas with a Black Acrylic Paint Dabber. I cut a few cogs using the Spellbinders 'Sprightly Sprockets' die ( love that title) and used various mixes of Distress Embossing Powders and Stampendous Frantage to achieve a vintage rust look.

I then covered the clock face with strips of metal foil tape which I firstly embossed using the Tim Holtz Alterations, Texture Fades Riveted Metal embossing folder. After attaching it to  the areas I wanted, I then used Alcohol Inks in, Ginger, Expresso, Pitch Black and Gold Mixative to cover over the surface. Once dry, I used wire wool to remove most of the ink. I love the way it gets caught in the little indentations and creates that aged metal look, you never quite know how it's going to turn out. Here's a photo before inking, of course I forgot to take one of the inked surface!

The next stage was to paint the 'torn back' areas, I used a gold Paint Dabber for this, and attached the various cogs and gears with Glossy Accents once the paint was dry.

I cut the Roman numerals out of craft card, on my Pazzles Inspiration machine. I love it when I have the time to use this machine. The numbers have been given a coat of gold embossing powder and have been mounted on dimensional pads. Now, if You've managed to stay to the end of this post, I know it's pretty lengthy, I'll let you into a little secret.... All the way through altering this clock face, I took great care to not damage the clock hands, then just in my typical fashion, not knowing when to stop, I rashly decided to alter the hands which I have to say were a perfectly acceptable plain black finish. I carefully inked them up with Versa Mark and applied Aged Black Embossing Powder, treating each hand separately, I applied my heat tool and Voila!..... lovely looking but no longer working hour hand! As I held the clock up to admire my work the hand fell limply to the 6'o'clock position..... so disappointing after all that work. Not to be defeated I have ordered another clock movement and will fit it, as soon as it arrives. Still it reminds me of a quote I read made by Thomas Edison when asked about the secret of his success...."I owe my success to the fact that I never had a clock in my workroom." Brilliant! maybe I should just leave it as it is, set permanently to 'craft time' x