I have another sample from the recent shows on The Craft Store to share this week and this one features one of the brand new zentangle images designed by Melina Dahl, a rather majestic and kingly lion.

I decided on a funky stripy design for my background so the first step was to create some background papers to cut up as I wanted to use the versatile pattern stamps that come in the set with the lion.

I used my usual go to choice, smooth white cartridge paper and cut several wide strips which would fit the circular MDF surface I intended to use. I misted the strips with yellow and orange shades of Flat Matte Sprays and left them to dry. 

I then stamped on the coloured papers with co-ordinating shades of inks apart from one where I wanted a stronger contrast.

I forgot to take the before photo but the one below has the leftover bits which shows the stamping.

I decided to use the yellow and orange strips for the background as a good contrast to the lion, cutting 3cm strips from the paper, 2 yellow and 3 orange. I glued these on, starting with orange in the centre and after they were all in place, trimmed off the excess. I cut a strip of the browner one and inked the edges with brown ink before gluing in place horizontally across the centre.

I wanted to decoupage the lion so I stamped him 3 times on smooth white stamping card with dark brown ink and coloured the image with pencils. I then cut the whole image out once, following with the face and inner part of the mane and just the face. I glued them together with dimensional glue and then stuck the image to the background.

My chosen text was created with alphabet stamps on scraps of my decorated papers. I cut these into tiles and inked the edges before gluing in place under the lion.

My final finishing touch was to ink around the edges with brown ink to emphasise them.

Smooth Cartridge Paper

Coloured Pencils 

Have a great weekend and see you next week.