Steam Punk Storage by Gill Humphrey

At this time of year often its time to have a jolly good sort out and having custom made storage is a great incentive to do just that. So my first blog post of the year for That's Crafty! features one of their storage MDF pieces - storage tray 3 was used for this piece.

I started by constucting the box using glue and let it dry thoroughly before priming the surface with Black Primer Paste. Next I added papers from the original Sir Vagabond collection which were in my stash but the papers from the 8 x 8 Aviator collection would work well. This size fits nicely on the end panels and then it just requires a little sanding to neaten the edges and expose the handle hold.

The main focus of this project is the decorations on the front and back panels. For the base colour I chose earthy brown from the Rust Paint set and left it to dry. Once the background colour had dried I applied a mix of deluxe pastes through the Control Room Stencil - whilst I used Champagne and Truffle for mine it will work equally well with  Truffle, Anthracite and Emerald which are currently in stock. Once the pastes had dried I then applied Patina Blue and Patina Green Antiquing Gels wiping them back before they had dried so that it highlighted the details of the stencil.

Inside the box I used the Patina Paint Effect Set applying the different colours randomly and allowing them to mix whilst wet.

For the front of the box I cast lots of elements using Amazing Casting Resin - I chose a variety of moulds: Sir Vagabond Airship, cogs mainly from Machine Parts and I also added elements from Cuts and Scraps greyboard sets - Gears Gauge, Small Gears and Gears. The resin cogs and greyboard pieces were primed with black gesso and then using the rust paint set colours layered from darkest to lightest till I was happy with the effect - a little of the Fine Powder in the paint set was mixed in with the Red Clay paint to give texture. Finally a little Antique Paste in Brass was used to highlight the surface details (you could use any of the metallic waxes instead but will get a shinier result with these than the Antique Paste). The airship was painted with the Patina Paint Effect set and once this was dry coated in Umber Antiquing Gel before wiping back to reveal the low lights. The surface highlights were again picked out with brass antique paste.

Having made all of the components they were adhered in place using Matte Heavy Body Gel, before gold wax was taken around all of the edges of the box.

I hope you have found this tutorial helpful and that you decide to make some custom storage for your craft room.