Her gaze

Today I'm showing my second inspiration make for the Country View Challenge on the theme "The eyes have it", chosen by my teammate Jane.

This is a project that took months to conceive but eventually came to fruition in a weekend... I had bought this Stamperia rice paper, not for a specific project, but because I fell in love with it and had to have it.  Of course the problem was, I didn't want to lose a single piece of it or obscure it in anyway, which  made it difficult to use it in a creative way.

So I went big... 12"x12" to be exact and the paper being A4 (21x29.7cms- approximately 8"1/4x11"1/5) I had some white space to add my own marks...
After months of creative drought I suddenly got excited to play with stamps, inks etc.. to create a a layout in the Vintage style that I favour.

 First, I divided the rice paper in 3 pieces, keeping the bottom left corner for another project and glued it in place with Mod podge. This paper is more sturdy than classic tissue paper and I was able to adhere the paper without wrinkles, although you may want to in order to have a more grungy look!

I gave a top coat of matt glaze to be sure the paper would be protected from any wet medium I might decide to add later...

I applied colour to the rest of the cardstock to blend it with the rice paper. No particular reason for my choice of medium apart from the fact that I wanted to avoid acrylic paints (it limits the choice of inks when stamping) and overly wet mediums.

Next I wanted to use my new Stamperia stencil, Wallpaper Fantasy and new stamp set - Enjoy to add interest to that (almost) virgin space.
I also used a texture stamp from Prima/Finnabair and although mine is from an older collection, you will find 15 different textures stamps from the Prima/Finnabair collection on the Country View Craft site, here.

With the stencil I used inks bottom left and gloss medium at the top of my layout, which I later foiled.

Next, with all the "messy" stuff finished I pulled out my Martha Stewart punches. They are probably seen as old school but unless you're the lucky owner of a Big Shot Pro, you cannot die-cut a 12"x12" page and punches are still the only way... Plus, I haven't used them very much, and they should earn their rather expensive real estate in my craft "room".

Once I had punched my corners and borders, I added more inks to blend the margins and distressed them too.
This particular corner isn't a PATP but a corner + unrelated border, which I have found a way to use together satisfactorily.

I then put together my focal point with a photo from an ephemera pack by Prima. The young girl and the woman had the same unyielding look in their eyes, which I thought perfect for our theme!

And now for the reveal....

I do hope you will like my page and join us in the Country View Challenge this month. As usual there is a £20 voucher to be won...

Do let me know in your comments if you have a lot of MS punches and how often you use them these days.
Thanks for coming by,
I am entering the SSS Monday (not a lot of green but a bit…), Vintage Journey and SSS Wednesday challenges.