Gettin' Inky: Unlocking Paris' Secrets

- by Zoe Sanderson

When we learned to subject of this issue, Paris, my hand went up very quickly.   Paris fascinates me so close and so many connections between France and England, History entwined.   Yet for all that very different  French Food, French Fashion and, of course, French Passion, un-rivaled in style, flourish and flair by us Brits.

When it came to it I did not have any ideas at all, and the deadline had passed!   So I gathered all the stamps that brought Paris to mind looking for ideas.

Do I theme on history, or Saucy or those wonderful landmarks?

One of the best ways to find inspiration is to go through your stash of stamps and things just looking and stroking them, ideas soon start to flow.

Images narrowed down.  Time to look at papers and maybe some dies.   Dies became the starting point of the project.

Same process starting to bring possible elements and colours together.  Most of these ideas are discarded, at least for now, but somewhere in with all the images and papers is the one you are looking for.

Still working on a assortment and not to sure where it is all leading to.   Have opted for a favourite colour combination, Pink and Green, and it's beginning to look a little vintage shabby chic.

Time to start getting serious.   Background chosen it is green, pretty and covered in Fleur de lis.    Stamps from various sets.  Key and Lock place assembled, seems masking is the way to go here.

Just settling on colour scheme and style brings new ideas and the images to be used start to self select.

Images stamped in Vintage Sepia, masked and the background image stamped in Archival light brown.

Everything looks rough at this stage.  Is it all a mistake?    For a lot of peeps, this is the time when they stop losing confidence.   Don't stop keep going.  It may not be what you have in mind but there is still a long way to go.

That lock needs to be distressed a little; the dusters are my favourite way to do this.  The ink is more gently spread, giving a more feathered blended result.

Build up layers and make one side/area darker adding a little more depth and dimension to the subject.   In this case that stripy base is a piece of old packaging simply much to good to be discarded.

Almost done, the layout is slightly different from the original idea.   There are too many focal points a viewer will not know where to look or understand the ideas behind this collage.

It's another one of those points in the project when you keep your objectives in mind and carry on.   The bones of the piece are all there they just need bringing together. 

With a little more distressing, some shabby EP (also in both Pink and Green) and finally some stick on pearls it all makes a lot more sense.

Page for one of my many ideas albums.  Hopefully, you will get an idea or two of your own from this.