Hi everyone. It’s Bonnie here today with Week 18 for the 2017 Art Journal Adventure. My prompt this week is to feature scallops of some sort on your page. I have been waiting to use this wonderful over sized stamp by Carabelle Studio called Cloud Fresco but you will often see scallops make their way onto my pages in the forms of die cuts, doodles, stencils, or on an image like fish scales.

Since I wanted a bright variegated colour palette for this stamp background, I spritzed three Lindy’s Stamp Gang Starburst Sprays onto the page moving from California Poppy Gold to Hag’s Wart Orange and finally to Hottie Patottie Hot Pink. Whenever I use spray inks, I clean up the over spray inks with ATC sized card stock for later use. You’ll see how I used the top one later on.

I mentioned that this stamp is quite large (close to 11 inches) and I didn’t have an acrylic block large enough so I used one of my long plates for my die cutting machine. It worked like a charm :). I stamped it twice with Jet Black Archival because I thought I might need another piece of it depending upon the design I went with. I fussy cut one of the images leaving a border around the curves so I didn’t lose any details.

For the background, I wanted something gray and rainy looking. I could have used striped pattern paper but I like to experiment in my art journal to see what would happen if…. so I tore some 1.5 inch washi tape into uneven strips and applied it in vertical strips to serve as a mask. Lindy’s Stamp Gang Down the Rabbit Hole Starburst Spray was spritzed over the top and allowed to dry.

Here it is once the washi tape was peeled away. I like the uneven  and partial stripes. It adds whimsy.

The stamped border was adhered to the top edge of the background and a torn gray checked patterned paper to the bottom, both with Scor Tape.

Two Stampotique Originals images were stamped with Jet Black Archival Ink onto white card stock. The one on the left is called Daff and the one on the right called Waltzing Fleur. I coloured Fleur using coloured pencils and fussy cut her leaving a narrow white border.

I also stamped Stampotique Originals Smiling Sun onto one of my clean up sheets using Jet Black Archival Ink. A little additional colour was also added to this guy with coloured pencils. Both images were matted with black and fussy cut to leave a narrow border.

The wording was printed onto white card stock and cut into individual words. These were then matted with black card stock and popped up on foam tape.

A length of baker’s twine was used to tether the sun to Fleur like a balloon since she’s bringing it with her wherever she goes. Some punched black scalloped borders were added to emphasize two of the words in the sentiment. The background was adhered to the black card stock I am using to mat all of my pages in this particular journal.

Sometimes the repetition of a simple detail like the scallops can really help tie a page together and can help direct or inform  your decisions. That’s certainly what happened here. Oh, by the way, did you notice how the bottom of Fleur’s skirt is drawn in scallops and fussy cut with even smaller ones? I love little details like that. They make me smile 🙂 I can’t wait to see what you create with the prompt, Scallops.