Fussy & Fancy Friday Challenge "Travel"

Hi there, today is the launch of the new Fussy and Fancy Challenge. The theme is "Travel" well you might think that my DT piece doesn't look like "Travel" but there are many forms of travel.  Car, Airplane, Boat, Life, Time??? So my Tag is about just that, travel through time and the memories that you collect on the way.

 



All Stamps used and the Gelli Plate are from ClaritStamp including the new Word Chain Stamps and New Design Club Stamp. I must say this little Lady here is one of my favourite stamps of all time, She stands out all on her own on any design she appears on, she is so elegant.  I had to sit with her on my desk for weeks not allowing myself to use her until I had caught up with all my DT work that was hard!
So, how did I make this Tag?  Well I took a few pictures to use as a visual tutorial and you will see it was really quick and easy once I had decided on the concept and the layout - yes I did say decided on the layout???

 

I stamped and cut out three of the "Large Sketched Lady" imagess and placed them onto my Tag with low tack tape before I took my Gelli Print - what you see here is the dregs that I took the print from. Sorry, took the picture after instead of before??

 

I normally go barging in there, slapping my paints and inks about and then seeing what I can make from the background I have, not this time I decided to PLAN  my design.  I was talking to someone today about my Painting & Decorating course and  I kind of remembered that I am a qualified Interior Designer and when I got to thinking about what I had done on the course I remembered about the Mood Boards we used to do.  You would never think about decorating a room without deciding on the scheme of the room first and the mood that you want to create and then the colour that will match all that and als what the client would want obviously??

 

This is the print that I got on the Tag

 

 

I then stamped the three images in the spaces where my cut outs had been, I stamped them slightly off so that they look shadowed.

 

So I decided to put this into practice a little bit with my DT work.  The way I normally craft is fine and works for me most of the time but I thought I would see how things go if I have a little plan first.  Especially now that I am doing my Gelli Plate Classes, I started very tentatively and am really enjoying them but I am also learning from the experience and I think this new way of crafting will help with the Classes.  Now I am not saying I will ALWAYs plan???

 

Then I added the words - seemingly randomly but actually they are where they are to give balance to the Tag.  I then played around with the NDC  Edelweiss stamp and  the Victorian  Watch and Pussy Cat, who can tell me which stamp set the pussycat is off??  If you find it on the ClarityStamp website and comment below I will draw one name of all the people who are right and send you this Tag, of course if you don't want the Tag I could send you some random craft item instead?? But of course it isn't that easy because you will only be put in the hat if you get the right answer AND have entered the Fussy and Fancy Challenge!  xx

 

 So I knew I wanted to use my lovely Lady stamp and I knew I wanted the Tag to be about a Journey through time, a persons life time and the memories that you gather along the way.  So to me that in itself is about traveling.   You know I sound a lot posher when I am typing than when I am talking!!!

 

This is the dress and Hat I cut out from one of the Masks I had made. I decided the middle Lady needed a dress on - I was now just looking to balance all the colours out on the Tag.

 

I coloured in the Hats and the flowers with Distress Markers that I bought at ClarityStamp I love these markers and they are the only pens I use for colouring now.  They are so good to use with your Gelli Plate  prints.

 

See there she is all dressed up and ready to party - do you like her outfit? 

 

So we have the Memories, time, Hats that match, now I just needed to do a little White Pen lines around the text because some of the paint below was a little thick for it to stand out properly.  Well it does when you look at it here but not on a photo.

 

I coloured the flowers with the distress marker too and the clocks, Blue is my favourite colour apart from Red that is, but the two together with a touch of yellow always look balanced to me.

 

I then put some Stream Adirondack ink on my Claritystamp Mat and blended from the mat onto the edges of my Tag.  Everything looks good framed, don't you think?

 

There you can see the white on the Word Chain letters now.  Something that you don't really notice but that makes all the difference.

 

 

There you go, the finished Tag "A Journey Through Life". I am always honest about weather or not I like what I produce and I will admit I do like this and can't believe I am going to give it away, that's if anyone wants it of course?  But that's OK because I will make a new one,
 I have a Plan as Barbara Gray would say.

 

So please come along and join in our Fussy & Fancy Friday Challenge and show us your take on "Travel" and if you win you will be a Guest Designer on our next Challenge, and if you don't win you may be picked by our lovely Team Member Jo Rice in the top 5.  Jo is hosting this challenge and has added a great piece of Art work herself along with the rest of our lovely Design Team.

 

Bye for now,

Sam