Catching Up...and Rust Never Sleeps

I am taking an online class over at Big Picture Classes by Claudine Hellmuth - "Technique Toolbox." Since it is summer, I thought I would stay right on top of this, but no, I ran behind, so am catching up to the first two weeks.

I learned some great techniques so far, like color tinting B&W photos, and transferring images.

I put some of the techniques I learned together on this collage tag. Behind it is my not so great attempt at doing a watermark resist (what I had did not work - learned I really need the reinker to make it work). Color tinted the bird's nest and decided to add a little saying, and some bling.
Now, for "rust never sleeps"...I just had to fit in that Neil Young song for the rust challenge over here at Steampunk Challenges.

So, here is my tag for the challenge...and yes, there is a rusty star and rust colored ribbon I made.

Started out by embossing some canvas and coloring it with distress paints. You can see some of the detail here. I have to figure out how to use the leftover embossed canvas backing...any ideas? I love how the design is "etched" into the canvas with the paints.

Created dimension with all kinds of goodies - a little light bulb, a word bar, watch parts and gears, ribbons...

Exhibit #1 - "To embrace imperfection" this is definitely a lesson I have learned in my creative life. So often what I start to follow in my mind's eye, just does not translate into what I am making. Many, many times I have said, "it's just paper, it's ok", or have made a happy discovery through a mistake. Often, it is easy to work around the imperfection, but there are times it is just best to deep six it! Now, if I was only better at accepting imperfections in myself and my life...still working on that.