This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area we call the 'Twilight Zone'

Yet another stamp CJ - yet more fun - I enjoyed this one with bells on.

The stamp this time was a little frame - about the size of a passport photo:

I had no clue what I was going to do with it - I have had the journal for a couple of weeks and kept taking it out and staring at it blankly, waiting for inspiration to strike.

Then a knight in shining armour came to my rescue - Sir Timothy Holtz of Rangerland - with a little post on his blog for National Scrapbooking Day in which he reprived his foamcore niche technique from his first DVD.

The frame would be perfect to surround a little niche, I figured.

So I got out my foam board and made an alien world, and a little niched window through which our intrepid explorer Theo can stare in wonder....

I honestly can't think of a more fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Well, other than watching Vancouver lifting the cup, or having a private Chilis gig in my back garden, or wandering around the Tate with my favourite person, so ok, there are lots of other things that would be more fun - but this was right up there, really :)

How-to:

The sky was first. I stamped various stars and planets, some with Brilliance ink, and some with Ranger acrylic dabbers, onto smooth mid-blue cardstock. Once the paint was dry I oversprayed with distress reinker / perfect pearls mixtures in dark blue, purple and red. The stamped images resist and show through the spray, but the background takes on a lovely dark shimmery finish which looks suitably outer-spacey to me.

I also sprayed some self adhesive cork with the red spray and a touch of orange, and left it to dry for later.

Next, the landscape:

I cut it from foamcore, and fingerpainted it with various shades of Ranger acrylic paint - Butterscotch, Terracotta, Copper and Gold. I also added patches of Distress crackle paint in yellow, orange and red (I can't remember their proper names - something to do with mustard, marmalade and the red was Fired Brick).

I overstamped in places with pearlescent beige ink using a GPP corrugated cardboard stamp for texture, and that was the foreground done.

Additional mountains for the background were cut from the cork we prepared earlier (Blue Peter eat your heart out :))

The alien guy - one of my favourite Third Coast stamps - was embossed with dark brown EP and then painted lightly with bronze acrylic.

Over on the right hand page, I cut out the niche for Theo, and backed it with a silver vortex stamped on black card.

I stamped, watercoloured and cut out Theo himself and then covered him with a light layer of microglaze so that his colours wouldn't run under the Glossy Accents later.

I filled the bottom half of the niche with glossy accents and added some tiny blue, green and purple microbeads. Once it had partially set, I popped Theo in and then added more GA over the top of him - so he seems to be behind a window.

The frame was stamped and embossed in copper onto dark blue cardstock and placed in front of the niche.



The page title:
Finally. After years of searching. Theo found it. The window to another world.
was added with a Dymo labeller - and that was it all done.

I like this one so much I want to keep it. That's the only downer about CJs.

I hope Theo's final recipient likes it as much as I do :)