Dare to be Unique...............

Hi there,

Time for another creative blog post me thinks but before I do I would just like to 'Welcome' all of you who have chosen to follow me n to say a big thank you to everyone who's stopped by to take a peek. It was wonderful to read so many lovely comments that were left about my blog n my first creative post !
So with me being such a novice at blogging  I will have to own up n say despite wanting to reply to each comment individually  I wasn't able to?  I did abit of poking around behind the scenes so to speak but with no joy so I do hope a few group replies will be ok  for now until I suss it out ! ( if anyone can steer me in the right direction it would be appreciated.)

Now for the creativity ........

I guess this piece evolved from deciding I was going to enter Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge. A quick hop gave me the brief - Red + Pink - to be inspired by the traditional colours associated with Valentines . Are you a Red or Pink person the brief asked ? hahaha - well lets just say  given a choice   I DON'T DO RED or PINK so I decided it might be fun to step outside my usual colour palette n take on the challenge!

I had in mind that I would make a card so started with the background. For this I used Tim Holtz distress paints - Fired Brick, Spun Sugar , Brushed Pewter n Picket Fence.  I used then like you would if you were doing a wrinkle free distress technique. Once I was happy with the colour I then went in with some Fired Brick distress ink  just to give a bit more depth to the red hue . Out came the Black Soot ( well I was beginning to get a bit jittery with all this red n pink going on , lol ) to darken the edges .

Some stenciling n stamping was added randomly using Fired Brick, Barn Door n Black Soot distress inks to create more interest n  depth to the background. Then I spritzed lightly with Black Soot distress spray stain n Pewter cosmic shimmer to give a subtle sparkle .

Finally a few (3)thin strips of  harlequin tissue tape were strategically placed on the background .

After some indecision ( I'm the queen of it ) I opted for one of the stamps from the dylusions stampset- 'Strength'. After stamping with Black archival I cut the image out n added some red shading to the harlequined top, the eyes n the lips !! I drew round the stamped image on black card as I wanted to create a shadow that hopefully would make the image 'pop  when placed on the background! The shadow was adhered flat n the stamped image was offset n adhered with dimensional glue .

As I love using metal bits n bobs on my work I added some small  metal washers at the ends of the tissue tape  n some lengths of chicken wire cut in half  leaving a space free for the quote ! 

The quote I opted for was one of Wendy Vecchi's -do love the fonts Wendy chooses for her quotes/sentiments . I thought it worked well with the stamped image. A quick mounting secured with brads n it was ready to go !

Although my initial thoughts were to make a card, I did infact decide otherwise n made it into a piece of wall art instead using mountboard. I  made  a couple of holes for hanging, finished them off with eyelets n used black ribbon to hang!

n here it is ..... Dare to be Unique!! 

Hope you've enjoyed your visit n hope to see you again soon !

I would like to enter this piece into the following challenge

SimonSaysStamp Monday Challenge Red+Pink

As I have used stencils on this piece I would also like to enter it into

Craft Stamper Take It Make It -February challenge