This is a scheduled post because I am travelling around Scotland at the moment, visiting lots of my lovely crafty friends and attending a charity craft event, run by my lovely friend Kath Stewart. I apologise if I do not get round to visiting you, but hopefully I will catch up with many of you when I get home.
Over at (the designer of the ATB, and dozens of other fabulous dies) Eileen Hull's Art with Heart Challenge, the theme for June is Summer Celebrations. I have taken that theme quite literally for my ATB - as a child, the start of summer was heralded by the Circus coming to town and I loved it!
As luck would have it, Tim Holtz has recently added a Circus themed (Big Top) set of stamps to his wonderful repertoire so I was in my element making my ATB. Here is a view of one side of the finished block.
The project was started by creating an initial master board using Distress Inks in wonderful bright colours - Ripe Persimmon, Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmalade and Fired Brick and using Tim's wrinkle free distress and spritz and flick techniques. Love the glorious colours of this combination!
The block was cut from the largest of Eileen Hulls's block dies using Sizzix custom-made double-sided Mat Board and then painted with DecoArt's Americana Decor chalk paint.
The master board was cut to size, embossed with Tim Holtz's Drapery Embossing Folder, inked around the edges and then attached to the block. The word stamp from the set was stamped in black Archival and added to the top. The characters were stamped, coloured with Distress Inks, fussy cut (which took ages) and then triple embossed to give a nice gloss. The chevron on the edge die was cut in black card to form the decorative edge for the top of the block.
You can just about see in the right hand photo, below, the juggler with his colourful juggling balls - in order to fit them in, the chevron top was added to incorporate the balls. The chevron also creates a little drama, which is what the circus is all about, so I was more than happy with that solution.
To finish off the block, I thought it needed some height so I painted a large thread spool in the DecoArt black paint and added this to the bottom.
A final view - this is the top of the box with this wonderful sentiment.
I know that most of the travelling Circus companies now do not have animals (which I totally agree with), but it does not detract from my childhood pleasure of visiting the Circus to see them......
Don't forget, Eileen's June Challenge (Summer Celebrations) which you can find HERE is still open, it does not have to be an ATB. Eileen always has wonderful prizes on offer, I really hope you will join in!
I will be posting my blocks on the third Thursday of each month, although I will probably do blocks more often, as I love them so much. I am thrilled that many of you are loving the blocks too. Thanks for joining me and I hope to see you again soon. Hugs, Anne xx
Supplies:
Eileen Hull's Sizzix Scoreboard Die 658983 is available HERE for the UK and Europe and HERE for the USA.
