Stampers CJ - #2 - "the key"....

... where #1 was my own book, and the stamp was "the door"

This is my entry in Di's book for the UKstampers latest "take one stamp" style Circle Journal.

I've done a few of these before so you might be familiar with the format by now - it's one of those collaborations where a stamp is provided, and each participant designs a page using that stamp in any way they wish.

Di's stamp is this ornate key:

I was a tad stuck with this one to start with, as it calls out for a "vintagey" type treatment, and I don't really do vintage.

Jay thought it looked a little like an elephant's head, so I tried for a while to do something with that, with an elephant's head peeking out through the jungle leaves, kind of thing, but I couldn't get it to work.

Then I thought maybe I could use the little man in the middle of the stamp and use him repeatedly to make a crowd scene, looking up at the giant key. Not sure where I was going with that exactly :) And it would have been a nightmare of selective inking and masking to get it to work.

But anyway, I continued along that train of thought, and ended up here:



The backstory is on the back of the page here:



Not sure how well you can see in the pic, but they key statue has been stamped onto metal and embossed from the back to make it 3D. I filled the back in with glue lines so hopefully it will stay puffy.

Other stamps used are a pedestal from, I think, The Stamping Ground, the crowd scene from Viva Las Vegas, the Venice skyline from Green Pepper Press, and a moon, and silhouette of pine trees, unknown.

This CJ goes to my pal Alison next, I wonder what she will do with the key?