Weld-done Card

Hidy Ho, crafty peeps!

I just got back from a surprise birthday party for our friend, Dewayne. He was surprised, so it was a success! Of course, I procrastinated until this morning to make his card.

Ugh.

When will I ditch this habit?

Maybe later.

So, a little background on our friend. This was his 60th birthday. He's a world-class welder. WORLD CLASS. He has written several books on welding and he teaches at a local college. My nephew took his Welding 101 class last summer. Now, what kind of card should I make for a world-renowned welder?

A card that looks like it has welding on it. DUH!

So here it is. This is the outside.

and, here is the inside:

First off, does ANYONE out there get the reference of this card? I'll explain it at the end of the post for those of you who don't.

Here's the 411 on how I made this card.

Starting with the OUTSIDE.

• Die cut several gears and letters out of an empty cereal box
• Emboss a piece of cereal box (I used the diamond plate folder from Sizzix)
• Arrange and adhere embossed piece, gears and letters to cardstock card base front.
• Add hot glue elements to resemble screws, weld joints and rivets. (for screws, I pressed the edge of a scissors blade into the hot glue blob to create the slot)
• Bend wire into long oval and spot-glue in position around central "screws" of gears.
• Carefully cover entire front of card with strips of aluminum tape (making sure you butt them right up next to each other without leaving any gaps). I get this stuff from either the dollar store or the hardware store. The roll I used is 2" wide.
• Using cotton swab and paper blending stub, burnish tape down and around all elements.
• Paint entire surface with thinned-down acrylic paint and let it dry completely (or do like I did, and speed-dry it with a heat gun).
• After card front is dry, use steel wool (in circular motions) to remove some paint from surfaces.

For the INSIDE:

• Create pop-up card base using 3-D card base die from Sizzix
• Emboss cereal box pieces (that have bee cut to size for background and for numbers)
• Cover cardboard pieces with aluminum tape and burnish as before.
• Adhere embossed/metallic pieces to inside of card.
• Add pop-up elements and embossed cardstock
• Die cut gears from empty soda cans and adhere to inside of card with foam spacers. 

Ingredients:
Horizontal Card w/ Circle Label 3-D die (Sizzix)
Gadget Gears die (Sizzix)
Diamond Plate and Riveted Metal embossing folders (Sizzix)
acrylic paint
aluminum tape
hot glue
cardstock
wire
soda can
cereal box

As promised...I'll explain the reference of this card. The rotund robot guy is a character from the movie "Robots". He's the big cheese of the largest manufacturing plant in the capitol city. His name is Big Weld. His motto is, "You can shine no matter WHAT you're made of!"