Clockwork mechanisms. Old engineering drawings. Gears and cogs. Aged paper. Butterflies, botanicals and flashes of burnished copper and bronze. For our Steampunk After Dark Box, we headed into a world of Victorian invention and industrial curiosities, creating a stationery and creative collection designed for junk journalling, scrapbooking, illustration and mixed-media projects. And this was definitely a box made to be experimented with!!
Alongside our exclusive Steampunk papers, stickers and washi tapes, we included supplies from Faber-Castell and Artiste so you could draw, paint, layer, cut, tear and add your own aged metallic details.
Here's everything that was inside...
- Two rolls of Washi Tape
- Three Sticker Sheets
- Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen
- Faber-Castell Creative Marker
- Junk journalling scrapbooklet
- Ephemera Sheets
- Artiste Acrylic paint
Two Steampunk Washi Tapes
We start with not one, but two rolls of coordinating paper tape. The Steampunk After Dark box included a 30mm wide washi tape alongside a narrower 15mm roll, giving you two different scales to work with.
Use the wider tape to create larger areas of pattern in a junk journal or scrapbook, then bring in the narrower design for borders, layering and smaller details. You could tear rather than cut the edges for a slightly more aged, imperfect finish.\
Three Sheets of Steampunk Washi Stickers
Next up, three whole sheets of washi paper stickers, featuring objects and illustrations from our Steampunk collection. The papery finish makes washi stickers particularly good for journalling and collage because they blend into the papers underneath rather than sitting on the surface like a glossy sticker.
Layer them amongst the ephemera and scrapbook papers, add them to envelopes and letters or combine them with your washi tapes to build your own wonderfully cluttered steampunk pages.
Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen in Dark Sepia
We wanted a drawing pen that would work beautifully with the aged colours of this collection, so we chose a Faber-Castell PITT Artist Pen in Dark Sepia.
The fine tip is ideal for drawing, writing, adding outlines and tiny details, while the dark sepia ink gives you something softer and warmer than a traditional black.
Even better, the drawing ink is waterproof, making it a really useful addition to mixed-media projects where you might want to add paint or other wet materials to your page.
Faber-Castell Creative Marker in Copper
Of course, a Steampunk box needed some metallics! The Faber-Castell Creative Marker contains water-based copper ink that can be used on both light and dark paper.
Use it for lettering, highlights and metallic details, or bring it into your illustrations and journal pages alongside the Dark Sepia PITT Artist Pen.
That combination of deep brown ink and copper is particularly good for adding an old, industrial feel to your pages without everything becoming too dark.
Steampunk Junk Journalling Scrapbooklet
The Junk Journalling Scrapbooklet contains 16 pages of steampunk-inspired imagery ready to become part of your own projects. Cut things out neatly. Tear them. Layer them. Fold them. Add ink around the edges. Cover them in stickers. Stick them into journals. Turn them into tags.
This isn't a booklet you're supposed to keep pristine, it's there to be cut up and used.
If you've wanted to try junk journalling but haven't known where to start, this gives you a ready-made collection of coordinating imagery to experiment with.
Four Ephemera Sheets
And because we wanted to give you even more things to cut up, we also included four ephemera sheets printed on 170gsm uncoated paper. The heavier paper makes these brilliant for creating more substantial collage elements, tags and layered details.
Combine them with the thinner scrapbook papers, washi stickers and tapes to play with different textures and depths on the page.
Artiste Metallic Bronze Acrylic Paint
Finally, we couldn't create a Steampunk collection without a bit more bronze.
The box includes Artiste Metallic Bronze Acrylic Paint, which you can use in all sorts of ways across your paper crafts and mixed-media projects.
One of our favourite techniques is to apply a little with a sponge, building up the colour unevenly to create an aged effect with just a hint of metallic shimmer! Try it around the edges of papers and ephemera, dab it over textured surfaces or use it to add little flashes of bronze throughout your pages.
It's another way to take the supplies in the box and make the finished project completely your own.
Made for Cutting, Sticking, Painting & Experimenting
The Steampunk After Dark Box was really about giving you a collection you could get stuck into.
You had the Dark Sepia PITT Artist Pen for drawing and detail, copper marker and bronze acrylic paint for metallic effects, then layers and layers of exclusive papers, ephemera, stickers and washi to cut up and combine.
Use everything together for a full steampunk junk journal, or let individual pieces find their way into your notebooks, scrapbooks, letters and other creative projects.
We'd love to see what you created with yours, so don't forget to tag Under the Rowan Trees when you share your Steampunk After Dark projects.
