Nautical Salvage Plaque by Alison

Hello all, it's Alison here from Words and Pictures with a layered Nautical Plaque for you today.  I'll be sharing more "making-of" details over at mine some time in the future, but here are some pictures to keep you going in the meantime.  I wanted to create something with some of the Mini-Cogs - they come in sheets of different designs so that you get plenty to play with!

I used some of the Birchwood Plaques for my substrates - an Oval (200x150mm I think) and a Rectangle (150x75mm I think, but I'm not at home to measure them for sure!).  There are various sizes and you can specify whether you would like holes pre-drilled or not.  My oval has holes so it's ready for hanging, but my rectangle is hole-less, making it a great element for layering.

Let's start with that rectangle... I gave it a coat of DecoArt crackle paint and then stamped and painted it.  I didn't plan it that way, but I noticed it was starting to look like an antiquarian map - something I love to pore over - so I decided to let it happen, and added more ocean tinting around the "land".

So then I changed direction with the rest of my plans.  I had thought I would go for quite an industrial grey-blue look with all the cogs and gears, but with the old map looking so splendidly weathered I decided to go for a rusty look instead.

I applied texture sand paste roughly to the cogs, leaving some blank areas, and then layered paints and sprays until I liked the look of them.  I've used a mixture of Mini-Cogs - Style 1, Style 3 and Style 4, and you get multiple sizes of each design on each sheet.

I added some metal pointers to some of them, as well as a couple of extra altered metal pieces.

As I tried to position the cogs on the map, I found they were covering too much of the background for my liking, so I decided to expand the whole project by a layer.

That's when I took the oval plaque and applied layers of paint and crackle to get a look of ocean waves and weathering around the edges.

Now I had some extra space to arrange my cogs, and it also created a great dimensional look.

I attached an altered WordBand with some of my trusty rusty wire, and there's also some rusty wire to hang the whole thing up by.

I hope you like it... I always love to hear what you think.  Thanks so much for dropping in today, and I'll see you soon.

Alison xx