That's Life: The Sky's The Limit ~ Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge

Hey everyone!

Hope you've had a fabulous weekend and you're ready for the week ahead! Of course, a brand new week means the start of a brand new challenge over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge blog and this week is called ~ "From Up In The Clouds". Whether you are inspired to create a light and fluffy piece, use sky blue, create an art journal or quote about clouds, or if you have your own interpretation of our challenge ~ we invite you to go soaring among the clouds with us this week!

For my project, I decided to do some journaling and made a two page layout using the theme of the sky's the limit! I wanted to make the sky the feature of this piece and chose to keep the rest of the layout in tones of black, grey and brown.

To begin with, I took my Dylusions journal and painted the surface of two pages with a coat of gesso. I then applied a layer of Distress Paints over the top, using a blended combination of Broken China, Salty Ocean and Tumbled Glass.

The next stage was to add some layers and for this, I used some Tissue Wrap and stuck torn pieces to the corners of the page. I then applied some more paint over the top of the Tissue Wrap to blend the edges of the tissue into the background.

Once I was happy with the background, I then needed to start creating the sky and for this, I used a scalloped edge circle punch and punched the shape from scrap paper. I then used this punch to create the appearance of clouds by using the Mini Blending Tool and sponging small amounts of Picket Fence Distress Paint around the top edge of the scalloped edge.

To complete the background and add layers of interest, I applied some Texture Paste through the Faded Dot Stencil and added flicks of Black Soot Distress Paint before stamping directly onto the background using the alphabet stamp from the Tim Holtz Alpha Type stamp inked with Watering Can Archival Ink.

Finally, using the Black Soot Distress Marker Pen and adding it to the Distress Marker Spritzer, I spritzed the ink through the Latticework stencil, directly onto random areas of the pages and that's the background finished!

For the next stage, I stamped the Bird in Flight stamp using Jet Black Archival Ink onto the background on the left hand page and coloured it with a wash of Gathered Twigs Distress Paint.

I used the Industrious Stickers and Chit Chat Stickers to add the wording to the right hand side and added Remnant Rubs to various sections of the pages.

I added some Tissue Tape, Sprocket Gears painted with Distress Paints to give a rusty appearance, sequins and enamel dots to complete the pages...

...before attaching a Prima Cartographer Typewriter Key to the top of the page.

Don't forget that if you're looking for some more great ideas and inspiration for this challenge, then you need to look no further than the blog to see all the wonderful creations from all the very talented Design Team members and every week, one lucky random participant has the chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. Good luck....