Some disappointingly non scary clowns....

Due to two circle journals ending over the next couple of months with one needing two layouts completed instead of the usual one, and two more new circles starting this month, I've managed to get myself horridly over committed in August - with 5 CJ layouts needing doing before the end of August.

Jack Skellington was the first, and this is the second.  Wish me luck with #s 3 to 5 :)

I've been doing CJs for around six years now, but this one was unique, in as much as the background of the pages was already prepared (the red and yellow harlequin design), which pretty much defines the colour scheme you'll need to work in, and also puts some limitations on how you work (no brads right through the page etc, which you could do in a normal CJ as you wouldn't be working straight onto the book pages).

This might have made it a bit more of a challenge, BUT I think it's a brilliant idea, because the resulting book with all its pages from different stampers flows together so well, with its consistent background and colours.  And of course everyone has used the same clown stamp, as this is one of those "take one stamp" CJs.

It really does make for a perfectly unified end result, and it's an idea I might well steal for a future journal.

When I first received this journal in the post, my immediate thought was to go all out horror movie in my entry, as surprisingly, nobody else who has yet worked in it has gone with the evil, scary clown angle.  And you know me well enough by now to know that I like the darker side of things.

Trouble is, I just couldn't get this idea to work with the stamp provided.  And so in the end I went with a pun on the phrase "just clowning around".

I stamped 9 images of the clown onto yellow card, one whole one, one just his ruff to decoupage over the main clown, and the remaining 7 I cut down to their midriff and layered onto a circle of glossy red card (after watercolouring them in muted colours to go with the vintage circus style of the book).

I set an eyelet in the middle of the circle, and then attached it with a large brad to a "cog" of orange card (a circle cut out with stamp-edge decorative scissors)

This cog was stuck onto the background, and the clowns were free to "clown aROUND" - ie spin:

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!

This entry was huge fun to make, and even more fun to play with :)

Next up.....the theme is "pink"..... not very "me" :)  But I have a germ of an idea.....