An Impulse to Soar

Hello and welcome all, with an especially big welcome to the new followers - it's lovely to have you here!  It's time for the monthly Artistic Outpost hop today.  It's a Designer's Choice theme, so there's all sorts of inspiration from my amazing team-mates on your way round... Here's the full itinerary:

Gerrie Johnnic, Lisa Somerville, Suzanne Czosek, Tracy Evans

Linda Coughlin, Alison Bomber, Terry Horrall, Kate Yetter

I've another make for you today which didn't turn out as planned - it changed direction part way through.  

That always happens when I have a plan - I'm better off starting with no idea where I'm going - but the change of direction was definitely for the better, so I'm happy!























The little girl from the Think and Wonder would pretty much always be my Artistic Outpost stamp of choice - there's just something about her.














And the Helen Keller quote from Quotes & Quotables was just crying out to be included.  

They're both stamped in Watering Can Archival onto Specialty Stamping Paper.  And I did some inking, spritzing and flicking with Pumice Stone DI and water.









So, the original plan was to mount my stamped panels onto a small canvas.  

I played with the layout until I was happy, and then - just to keep it all in place while I created the background on the canvas - I scooched it all across to a piece of painted corrugated card which was hanging around on my craft table.












Well, that was that for the canvas... the corrugated card was clearly where they were meant to live!













I added several stampings of the tiny flourish from the Serenity plate, stamped in Pumice Stone.  I love how it's almost the same colour as the unpainted cardboard.













If you saw my recent flirtation with pink (and I should just own up and say that I do quite like pink - some pinks, not Barbie pink!), you may recognise the colours on the flowers.












It's the combination of Hot Cinnamon and Spiced Pumpkin Primary Elements powders from Luminarte - made into sprays by my own fair hand and applied so as to keep some of the original creams and ivories showing through. 









The larger flowers are by Wild Orchid, and the little ones are from a pack of Petaloo flowers I picked up very cheaply.  

I love that with a spritz of colour you can customise them to fit whatever you're creating.









The butterflies are from the same Petaloo set.

The glitter continues to show through even after the spritzing...














... but I did tone down the bling factor by adding a bit of gesso to the pearls on the butterflies and in the centres of the flowers.

A couple of eyelets, also painted with gesso, and some twine to hang it up by, and there she is, ready to soar (which she almost did in the windy conditions during the photographing).

Thanks so much for dropping in.  I hope you'll have time to check in with the rest of the Artistic Outpost team - they've some real beauties in store for you.  

If you get lost along the way, you can find all the hop details here at Artistic Outpost.

See you soon!



My own brain is to me the most unaccountable of machinery - always buzzing, humming, soaring, roaring, diving and then buried in mud.  And why?  What's this passion for?
Virginia Woolf





I'd like to enter this for the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where A is for... well, Artistic Outpost, obviously - the stamp company I discovered second only to Tim Holtz at the beginning of this crafty journey, and for whom I'm extremely proud to be a designer.