Art Journey Challenge

I saw the latest Art Journey challenge on Paula's blog and thought it would be a fun one to play along with. It's been set by Jo and is called "You used WHAT?" - the idea being to use something you wouldn't usually use as part of stamping or inking your design.

My entry is just for fun, not for the prize draw since although my stamp is an Art Journey design it's the cover-mount freebie from Craft Stamper Magazine (March 2010 issue).

I used a piece of netting from a produce bag (Christmas-time tangerines, I suspect - it was a bit I saved in my "might be useful" stash of stuff!). I taped it to my cutting mat to stop it moving around while I sponged ink over the top of it to make my background piece.

I added some starfish and used alpha stamps to stamp the word "dream" along one edge, added a swoosh of colour with some watersoluable pastels and then added the image of the girl (coloured with a mixture of Copics and the same pastels). The top left corner is raised up on foam pads.

A couple of lines of wonky machine stitching and a collection of gems, jump rings, washers etc finish it off. The grey cardstock for the mat is a soft pearlised/metallic one, not sure if the photo really shows that up. I really must remember not to use that silver thread again though - I lost count of how many times the top thread snapped while I was doing this and no amount of twiddling with the tension made any difference!

Stamps:
Craft Stamper magazine freebie (designed by Art Journey)
My Type alpha stamps (Ma Vinci's Reliquary)
Starfish from Seaside set (Crafty Secrets)

Paper:
Black
Stardream pearlised (I think this is the Quartz colour)
Smooth white

Ink:
Distress ink by Ranger (Tumbled Glass, Stormy Sky, Chipped Sapphire)
Versafine by Tsukineko (Onyx Black)

Other:
Netting bag
Neocolour II Watersoluable pastels by Caran d'Ache
Copic markerSewing machine and silver thread
Mother of pearl button
Washer
Jump rings
Gems
Irridescent "bubbles" (2mm no hole glass bead)

Thanks for stopping by - if you have Art Journey stamps, I'm sure the team would love to see what unusual objects you can find to create with for the challenge.