When a Wave Comes – Go Deep – Steampunk Seahorse Tag

I was looking through my stash and waiting for something to leap out and shout “pick me, pick me” and it turned out to be this little steampunk seahorse chipboard that was calling to me to be featured.  (This is a project that was created for a DT by the way.)  So if I was going to use this little seahorse, what else could I put with it?  I decided that I would use it if I could find some suitable words to go with it that were ready made so I didn’t have to go creating my own this time, and look – just what I needed was right there in these Finnabair stickers lol.

I knew it was going to go on a tag so I am using these XL tags which come as a set of three with different shaped tops.  I had a Goldilocks moment trying my little seahorse on each tag to see which one was just right, before settling on this middle one.

Since we are talking seahorses, I remembered this poor little guy. This one is made from a Stamperia mould which I made way back when I made this Augmented Octopus.   I had left it sitting somewhere “safe” so it could dry safely and keep it flat, and then forgot it was there and dumped a pile of books on top of it, which snapped it in half.  🙁  So I thought I could fix him up and introduce him to his little steampunk friend on this tag.

After covering both seahorses and the tag with gesso, I pulled out some papers to make the background. Most of these I didn’t use but it is nice to have options right?  The green paper on the left is awesome and is covered in seaweed and shells and even little swimming people, which would work with the “go deep” quote.  The paper bag at the bottom is covered in thistles but they could pass for seaweed I’m thinking.  Hmmmm…

More options, including this bit of a Tesco toilet paper packet haha the things I hold on to, really!  There is a fine line here between hoarding and having a stash.

OK I managed to narrow it down to these, a bit of scrapbook paper at the bottom, some blue tissue and a bit of amazon bumpy packaging.  I stuck them all down with some matt medium.

I’m also using this bit of yellow nylon/ plastic? netting from some lemons I bought, and down the right hand side these little people from a Pukka tea box as they kinda look like they are swimming.  Oh, what’s that other tag on the left?  Well that’s another project as I was working on two at the same time but you will have to come back on the 16th to see that one!

I painted the base of the chipboard seahorse with this lovely turquoise acrylic and dripped the rest of it down the tag.  Then I mixed up a few acrylics together to get the colour I wanted for the top later of the chipboard seahorse and the plaster seahorse and painted them both.

On my table, I still have these tiny slivers of book paper from the August birthday gifts so I added some of them too.

Here’s a close-up of the chipboard seahorse completed.

And here, I decided to add more collage underneath the plaster seahorse.  These were also still lying around on my table crying out to be used.

Some finishing touches – adding some of this Peacock wax to highlight.

And adding this copper wax to the netting and the chipboard seahorse.

Here’s how he looks now next to the net.

My camera wasn’t so happy with macro photography so these are a little out of focus at full size.