Quick and Fun Steampunk ATC Tin!

I needed a quick little housegift, so I decided to make a little steampunk trinket to thank my hosts for inviting us.

I started out using a tin from Altered Pages, which already is filled with ATC (artists' trading cards) blanks. You can get them for a very reasonable price at Altered Pages here.  I always keep a couple sets around - I mean do you ever really know when you need a special tin to keep ATC's - or any little treasures - in? LOL

 

First, I covered the tin with a piece of the brown and cream French Kiss Glitz paper and used torn pieces of images from the Altered Pages Steampunk Sepia collage sheet - though they have a lot of different collage sheets to choose from! Then I inked the edges and distressed the top with Blotter, Sepia, and Walnut Inks by Paris Trunk. I then used part of a Tim Holtz chipboard gear, painted black and embellished with gold stickles. Usually, I would use more gears and watch parts, etc., but, remember, I was trying to get this done in a hurry! Finally, I inked the bottom black with Stayz-On. Again, usually I would lightly sand the metal, gesso the tin, and then paint. But Stayz-On is a solvent ink which adheres to metal - so that was the quickest way to go - and very little drying time!

 

Then comes the fun part! Take ten of the ATC's that come in the tin (save the others for future projects!) and decorate them up with stamps, collage images, chains, old jewelry, inks, and any other embellishments you have around. Keeping it in the steampunk theme, I used a lot of Victorian images combined with futuristic type machines. Romantic combined with industrial - such fun and imaginative!

Finally, take a long strip of ribbon, enough to cover the width of five ATC's plus about eight inches on each end. Glue - I like to use a dry adhesive like a UHU glue stick when I'm in a hurry, as there is little to no drying time involved - five sets of two ATC's back-to-back, encasing the ribbon between them.

Voila! Fast and fun gift! If I had more time, I would have painted or inked the inside of the tin, too (avoiding the closure area and not clogging the hinges, so it would still operate smoothly). But this was only 30 minutes start-to-finish, and I admit I had to cut some corners I normally would be loathe to do! Also, if you don't use a lot of 3-D embellishments (as I did), you could make the ATC accordian booklet longer and it would still fit in the tin. Since I used so many deep embellishments, I could only fit in five pairs.

The great thing about an online store like Altered Pages, you can do a complete project only using one resource! Everything used on this little tin (including the tin!) came from Altered Pages. The only extras were ink stamps and some embellishments from my personal stash. How easy is that?!

Thanks for visiting - and next time you need a quick house gift or for-no-special-occasion remembrance, make something fun and fast from your stash of art and craft supplies instead of just grabbing a bouquet of flowers!

Now - go make something beautiful!

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(¸.•´ (¸.•´♥ Tristan ♥