Sailing into the Blue(s)

Well, well - World Card Making Day - that's got to be worth celebrating, no?  Greetings to all out there in Craftyblogland, as we share our love of card-making... Frilly, Grungy, Funkie, Fussy, Steampunk, Fancy, CAS or cute - whatever your style, share a card today!

TIME PASSES...

Well, I don't know - I wrote that very upbeat opening on discovering it was World Card Making Day, and then went and sat at my craft desk and... nothing!  Tried some stuff... hated it!  Mojo-less on World Card Making Day - how's that for ironic?!

I decided I needed to push through and make something, so I have and, if you've been following, you may care to read into it another step in the internal journey I was making last weekend from here, via here, to here - meaning there's been a slight hardening of the heart again - but I'm going to leave that up to you.

Here's my offering, with mixed feelings about its successfulness, but it nevertheless comes with love to all the new crafty friends I've made on this extraordinary journey so far...

It's another piece inspired by music - seems to be a habit recently - the lovely, but melancholy I'll Sail This Ship Alone by The Beautiful South.  The title forms the sentiment.

The background is blended Distress Inks in Stormy Sky, Broken China and Chipped Sapphire, sprinkled with drops of water off my fingertips - TH's Spritz and Flick technique - to get the teardrop splatters.









There's some stencilling (using the Tando sequins mask) and stamping using the Kaisercraft music manuscript and text from the PaperArtsy sewing receipt.










And the gorgeous architectural cornicing is from one of the recent Stampers Anonymous Classics releases.

The two focal images are, of course, by the extraordinary Lynne Perella at PaperArtsy.  They're both stamped in Archival Ink; "the Captain", as I think of her, in Cobalt, and the Ship Lady in Black.  


The Captain is stamped on her own inky background, in slightly stormier colours, and the edges were given some dimension and shabbiness using the Tim Holtz Paper Distresser.

And the glorious Ship Lady has had some highlighting using the Picket Fence Distress Marker.

I wanted to whiten her face, but that lost me some definition in her features, so I redrew them using the fine end of the Black Soot Distress Marker.

The sails and her lacy upper half also got some attention.  

I love this stamp - a skirt made out of text, how gorgeous is that?!  But there's also something very strange and unknowable about her, and I think she, as much as anything else, was the inspiration behind that very firmly independent sentiment.

I definitely have the sense that it's her doing the "talking"...

(There's also a sense of the mask being firmly back in place with that white-lead facepaint look... If you've seen the wonderful film Elizabeth, with Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I, you'll probably remember the amazing final sequence where she turns her back on love and decides to commit herself to her kingdom (queendom?) - all to music from Mozart's Requiem. That's somewhere in my head here...)



So that's where I've ended up on World Card Making Day... I did in the end enjoy making this, but with a distinct bitter-sweetness about the enjoyment.  I'm certainly looking forward to coming visiting to see what everyone else has been up to. And looking forward to a return of the upbeat Mojo soon - perhaps I need to listen to some cheerful music...  
Happy Crafting all, and see you soon.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable.
Seneca

It is not the ship so much as the skilful sailing that assures the prosperous voyage.
George William Curtis

And my favourite sailing quote bears repeating (though it's been associated with this stamp before):
I am not afraid of storms, for I have learned how to sail my ship.
Louisa May Alcott

I'm offering this up for PaperArtsy's World Card Making Day quickie competition - one day only spectacular!
And for Crafty Boots who are also having a Mini-Challenge to celebrate today