Industrial Steampunk Heart for Courage

Hello Topflight fans. Today I've made a card for a dear friend who is contemplating shuttering his start-up. It is a very emotional time, and a lot of dreams and hopes are being dashed. But I think he is right to close this chapter and move on to the next. I created this card not only to let him know that I am thinking of him, but to remind him of the quote, "Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

I created this Industrial Steampunk card inspired by the striking Carabelle-Studio "The heart has its reasons" stamp set. I Copic colored it, and fussy cut it out and then painstakingly popped the whole image up on fun foam for added dimension. I also added some Ranger Glossy Accents to give it some shine and interest.

For the card front, I really wanted to create a layered and textured background. I rummaged through my paper scrap box and found some thick watercolor paper that I had long-ago painted with blue and green fluid acrylics. Just a bit of that peeks around the next layer up, which is a glossy and slightly textured patterned paper of keys and clock work hands. I also found a bit of corrugated kraft card stock that I decided to paint with streaks of turquoise shimmer mister, black acrylic paint and putty acrylic paint. 

For some Steampunk accents, I die cut 5 gears from 100 lb black card stock using some Diemond Dies Steampunk Gears Dies. To give them a metallic shimmer, I blended on some Delicata Golden Glitz Ink to the die cut gears. I positioned them around and behind the top layer, which was the beautiful Steampunk heart image. 

For the inside liner, I simply stamped out the faucet from the Carabelle Studio "The heart has its reasons" stamp set on the upper right side. I matted the liner on more of the watercolor paper with the fluid acrylic paint to echo the matting on the card front. Then I used my computer to print out the quote into a big water droplet shape. I hand cut out the droplet, blended on some Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass, and positioned it as if it were falling from the faucet.

I really enjoyed crafting this Steampunk Industrial card. If you'd like more details about the materials or to watch a Copic coloring video of the Steampunk heart image, please check out my blog HERE.