Gallery Idol Finals - Adhesive

Wow, what a ride!  I'm humbled to have made it to the final round of Gallery Idol, and I have to say that I have really enjoyed the whole competition this year.  What a great group of ladies, and challenges that really stretched me, especially this last challenge!

This was the hardest round by far.  I was really stumped and tried several different things, all which involved making a huge mess out of my craft space (and myself).

At the end of the day, I ended up with something that I think definitely showcases adhesive, but which is very me as well.  This is a play on a technique that I'm sure you have all seen - stacking die cuts to create extra dimension, especially word die cuts.  I decided instead of using those stacks as the focal point/sentiment, why not create stacks that become the background?

Basically I used adhesive to create little 'bricks' of cardstock.  I pulled out several shades of yellow and gray to create an ombre effect, and went to town with my 3/4" square punch.  I wanted the scene/background to have movement in both color and dimension.  So the bricks are shorter as you get towards the center of the card.  At the tallest corners the squares are stacked 14 deep, at the center, they are only 4 deep, and then there are variations between.  This took a little bit of finessing, since I used cardstock from several different companies with varying thicknesses, I needed to adjust the numbers of layer a bit depending on thickness.



Once the stacks were created I started thinking about the sentiment/image.  I was torn between something really basic because I wanted the background to shine through, but I didn't want anything too simple either.

This Birdie Brown set from My Favorite Things was the answer.  Originally I thought to stamp the entire scene on the squares, but I opted for a hybrid, with the sentiment and cityscape stamped directly on the squares and then the girl stamped on cardstock, colored, and fussy cut.

Here's how I went about stamping the sentiment/cityscape:  I used removable adhesive on a scrap piece of cardstock to adhere the squares in place and then stamped on them.  Then I adhered each of those squares to the corresponding brick in the pattern.



I wanted a more sketchy effect with the girl - to evoke a comic strip feel, so she was stamped in gray ink, and then I went back with a journaling pen to add the lines in, being careful, but not overly careful.  I added just a touch of color with some yellow copics to her cape and star.  

To assemble the card, I adhered each brick to a scrap piece of cardstock.  I also added a little liquid glue between each of the pieces to hold it together a bit more.  The entire panel was then adhered to the card and the girl was adhered with foam adhesive.



Thanks so much for all your votes and kind words and comments throughout the competition.  As I said at the beginning, it's been a blast.  Looking back on my cards I can truly say I love each one and I have none of the regrets I sometimes have about should I have added this or that, or maybe I should have used this color, etc.

Thanks again, and please head over to the Gallery and vote!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Avery Elle - Cream, Silver Fox, Fog, and White Cardstock; PTI - True Black, Harvest Gold and Lemon Twist cardstock; MFT - Steel Grey cardstock; Bazzill - Banana Split cardstock
Stamps:  MFT - Birdie Brown You're Super
Ink:  Versafine; CTMH - Slate
Other:  Tombow - Mono and Multi Mono Adhesive; Copic - Y00, Y13, Y18; American Crafts - 01 and 05 Black Journaling Pens; CTMH - Dimensional Foam Tape