Let Your Dreams Be Your Wings by Gill Humphrey

I have had the AALL and Create Stamp Set Take Flight in my stash for a while and have been debating what I would create with the female form for sometime eventually settling on combining the stamp with my all time favourite family of craft products - papers.

I took an 8" square canvas board and applied That's Crafty! Fine Texture Paste through Superbly Squares A4 stencil and left it to dry naturally before applying washes of Light Blue Paint from the top and Sandstone from the bottom allowing the two to mingle in the middle.

I fussy cut butterflies from the Craft O'clock Rice Paper 4, a window from Craft O'Clock Windows Extra, and a butterfly from Craft O'Clock Extras Butterflies bisecting the butterfly down the middle to give me two separate wings.

My focal image was stamped onto 300gsm smooth stamping card using Vintage Photo Distress Oxide and dragged the colour out using a water brush. The dried image was cut out and shaped using ball tools to give it more of a human form.

I applied three rice paper butterflies to the right side of my canvas using decoupage glue and added the window frame using foam pads so that it was lifted off the canvas. The remaining rice paper butterfly was then attached to both the frame and the board behind. I added my stamped image to the frame placing her so she sat on the window ledge and then tucked the large paper wings behind her. I used one of the stamps from the take flight stamp set and Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink to add some extra detail to the background.

I added some torn strips of AALL and Create Washi Tape #3 to the top of the canvas, beneath the window ledge and bottom of the canvas choosing the tape with blue in it to link with the background paint colours. I added a small piece of label tape over the washi tape beneath the window.

I stamped my sentiment from the Insect Wings Stamp Set on to a scrap of paper from Vintage Bisou 6 x 6 paper collection using Versafine Clair Nocturne ink and divided it into its component words before adhering them in place on my canvas. 

I then added shading to the sentiment and around the window and lady to give the illusion of depth using a brown Inktense pencil.

I added some metal embellishments - an index clip, pen nib and tiny light bulb tying them into the project using little dabs of the light blue and sandstone paints before swiping my Vintage Photo Distress Oxide ink pad around the edges of the canvas to give it a frame.