Admit One

This week, in my Challenge! online class, the theme was 'Circus'.

Ok, I am the first to admit, I don't like the circus. It has always had an overall creepy vibe to me.

But...

I am always up for a challenge. And this certainly was for me!

I have no 'circus' rubber stamps and yet this project seemed to be calling out for them. So, being the adventurous artist soul that I am, I began thinking....what stamp do I have that might work in a circus setting? When you have as many stamps as I do, this thinking takes a lot of time lol

I did finally remember that I have an elephant. He is not all fancy or anything, more like out on the Serengeti, but that was ok. And I wanted a tent! No tent stamp, gonna have to draw that. Hey, I could put the elephant in the tent! Wow, that takes up all of 1/4 of my page! lol

Ok, I need performers! So, I began digging through one of my 'people' boxes...not the Victorian/vintage one....the other one. :-)

Who pops up first but my poor overweight woman that for some reason I have put up on a high wire before...might as well put her up there again, she has experience! Digging deeper into the box, I found her a couple friends.

Now to put this whole side show together!

As I said, I drew the tent on watercolor paper. Then painted it with twinkling H2Os (it is the circus after all...we need some sparkle). I then stamped the elephant on the journal page, colored around here where the opening of the tent would be, sponged on a cloudy sky with chalks, and painted the grass and path before gluing on the tent.

I stamped all the people onto white card stock and using Twinkling H2Os, Staedtler water color pencils and Prismacolor pencils, I gave them life.

Placement was tricky due to the size of my people and the size of my page (only 5 x 8.5). I didn't quite know what to do with my dancing girls....then I decided they must be midgets (oops, "little people") so they could go in front of my high wire act!

stamp credits:
exercizing woman: VivaLasVegaStamps, Woman with word clothing: Stampers Anonymous, Dog: Rubber Stamps of America, Dancing Girl: The Moon Rose Art Stamps, Elephant: ImaginAir, Grass: Posh Impressions, Curiosity definition and Admit One ticket: Curious Possibilities by Tim Holtz

In the above close up, you might be able to tell that the woman is wearing a tulle tutu and is standing on a floss wire stretched tight under her feet.

But let us not forget the Christmas in July tag swap from last week! I finished my third tag. I again used a leather tag from my yard sale stash. I stamped the angel/cherub and noticed that she is hold what looks like a bar of soap that says "Pears". Since I didn't really know what I was going to do with her, I took her suggestion and gave her some pears lol

I also added some vintage sheet music and gold cording.

Stamp credit: Cherub: VivaLasVegaStamps

And since I was STILL in a tag mood. I used one of Tim Holtz jumbo tags and played around with Distress Inks and walnut ink to get a nicely stained background. I added bits of book pages and several stamps done in browns so they really sink into the background. The girl is a stamp from Tim Holtz.

The rest of my time was spent watching my garden grow! I actually harvested my first sugar snap peas of the year! It is going to be a while for any of our other produce but it sure got me in the mood for more fresh veggies! :-)