Reach for the Stars

Hello everyone, thanks so much for stopping by today.

It's time for the monthly Artistic Outpost bloghop and, with another Designer's Choice theme, you can be sure there'll be a whole variety of projects from my fantastic team-mates.  

Here's the full itinerary:

Lisa Somerville, 

Suzanne Czosek, Tracy Evans,

Linda Coughlin, Alison Bomber, 

Terry Horrall, Kate Yetter

I'm sharing a tag which lots of you will recognise as doubling as my response to Tim Holtz's inspirational February tag.

It all follows Tim's tutorial pretty closely - it's just colours and shapes which have shifted... and an Artistic Outpost stamp at the centre of it, of course.

Since I'm still awaiting my hearts stencil, and since Valentine's Day is now long gone, I decided that instead I would reach for the stars... all sorts of different stars!

Tim's star stencil echoes the hearts one pretty closely, so it seemed like a good choice to replace them for my version.  

And stars also seem to go perfectly with this positive sentiment from Artistic Outpost's Typography stamp plate.... be a star in whatever you do, go on!

I had a lovely time with the background - Tumbled Glass, Stormy Sky and Broken China Distress Stains, and then similar colours for the stencilled stars but with the deeper shades of Faded Jeans and Peacock Feathers added into the mix.

And clear embossing over Distress Inks is one of my favourite effects - I do it quite often, and I love it.

I did some extra chalking around the edges of the sentiment once it was done, and added one of the silver arrow stickers directly onto the chalkboard.

The stars are trimmed from the Star Cluster On the Edge die, cut out of Grungeboard.












They got a double dose of Distress Glitter colours - Broken China and Pumice Stone.

The topping is done very simply with Idea-ology linen ribbon, inked with Walnut Stain DI and frayed to within an inch of its life.

I added the trimmings from the linen ribbon at the top of the tag behind the clusters of stars for extra texture... I think it looks pretty cool!

Also cool is that the Industrious Stickers include a starry border... 

... to go with the arrows pointing out what you should be aiming for - perfect!!

So that's my offering for you today... 

I hope you'll take the time to visit the rest of the Artistic Outpost team - there are bound to be some real treats in store.  If you get lost along the way, you'll find all the details here.

Thanks so much for dropping in and I'll see you soon, either here or elsewhere in Craftyblogland!

I'd like to enter this as my February tag in Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2014, and I'd like to Show It With Words at the Inspiration Journal. 

Dwell on the beauty of life.  Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.

Marcus Aurelius

Oh, and I forgot to mention yesterday that there's another chance to receive some brotherly love over at the Artistic Outpost blog... worth a visit if you missed these dashing chaps!