Four Ways Friday #46 - Double Cog XL Punch

Have you ever bought an item that has just sat in your craft space and you look at it and wonder, "Why did I buy that?"  That's what the Double Cog XL punch has been for me...until now!  I decided to challenge myself to make it the focus of this week's Four Ways Friday and now I am actually excited about this punch!

Okay, so it didn't take much to stretch my imagination to use the cogs with a stamp set that already has gears in it!  Here I punched the cogs out of Very Vanilla card stock and then sponged them with Soft Suede ink and teamed them up with the Sense of Time stamp set.  The clock and greeting were stamped in Early Espresso and the gears in Soft Suede.  I added a bit of sponging and spritzing to the clock along with a few brads in the clock centers.  The card base is Natural Ivory (LOVE this color!).

If this card doesn't make you smile then you are definitely in need of a vacation :)  The cogs seemed to look like big monster truck tires (and no, I don't spend my spare time at monster truck rallies...not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with spending your spare time at monster truck rallies...and somehow I still thought "tires!" when I started playing with these cogs!).  Here I punched the cogs out of basic black card stock and applied Crystal Effects to them to make them shine!  I teamed them up with the truck from Loads of Love - I used my basic black marker to ink up the stamp only on the parts of the truck that I wanted and then stamped it onto Whisper White card stock, cut it out, and colored it in with Poppy Parade marker and a touch of silver marker (non-SU).  I also added some crystal effects to the windows after stamping the man from Loads of Love Accessories.  A strip of Basic Gray card stock became the road and the "live big" is from the Think Big stamp set (retired).

As I was playing around with the cogs, I started layering them and realized that cogs could be flowers!  Here I punched out multiple cogs from random designer series paper scraps.  For each flower I layered and adhered 2 of the large cogs.  For the centers I adhered one small cog onto the circle center punch from one of the large cogs.  I then adhered these to the card with dimensionals.  I added a rhinestone jewel in the center of each flower for a bit of bling.  For the stems I did a bit of sewing on the sewing machine.  The leaves were cut from the 5-petal flower punch and then scored down the center with a bone folder.  The greeting is from the Something To Celebrate hostess set.

Don't robots need cogs too?!?! :)  Here I cut up a few of the cogs to make arms and eyelashes.  The small cogs were great for eyes!  I did a bit of economical stamping too - I used the larger cap from my Tombo glue as a stamp to make the rectangular body shapes and cut them out.  I also did some stamping with the tube from my paper piercing tool to make the stamped circles around the eyes.  The greeting is from Alphabet Soup (retired).  I covered the eyes, small circles, arms, and "feet" with Crystal Effects to make them shine!
I hope you've enjoyed this week's Four Ways Friday!!!!  I had a lot of fun playing around with a punch that sat for many months gathering dust.  I hope this inspires you to look at the Double Cog XL punch in some new ways!!!  Have a wonderful and creative weekend!!!!!