A Bit of Steampunk! by Helen Chitlon

At the start of this week Laura and Graham  launched some wonderful new MDF kits one of which was this Amsterdam House Desk Tidy. There are 3 designs and I made up the other two with a floral theme.

This one however I wanted to be different. I started out painting it in blue and then stencilling over the top with some Titanium Paste. I tend to work on the MDF before I make it up when I'm stencilling or stamping simply because it's easier. If you get paint or paste on the joining tabs. just remove it with a craft knife before assembling.

Then I rummaged through my stash and found some of these wonderful Craftyboard lightbulbs, chain and cogs. There's two sheets of lightbulbs to choose from.

I added some embossing powder to the cogs. I tend to just mix my own (ie whatever I've got!) - add some gold or copper to your base powder for a metallic finish. Or, just layer it up - start with one base colour, heat it and add speckles of others on top. 

The chain is attached with brads.

I painted the inside black to cover all the blobs of paint!

And there you have it. You can paint your trio to match each other or make them all different as I've done. I wanted to try out different things on each one.

Hope you've enjoyed this project. I've now got a row of six houses on my mantelpiece - almost a street!

Enjoy!

Helen