Clowns and Balloons

Inspiration: Simon Says Stamp Wednesday (Stamp It) + Just Us Girls #157 (Hand-Drawn Elements) + The Card Concept #97

I have had a card concept rolling around in my head for a few months now and I never put it to paper because I didn't know which angle to tackle it from. There's this French-Canadian guy called François Pérusse who does little two-minute sketches for radio that later came out as albums starting in the early 1990s and it became a real phenomenon. The albums had a cult following and pretty much everyone from my generation can quote most of his stuff, à la Monthy Python or Princess Bride. One of the sketch is about two clowns who do "singing telegrams," getting paid to go ring a doorbell and sing people a message. They have this hilarious birthday song that is insanely fast and starts with "Hello, happy birthday with clowns and balloons..."

The idea came into focus today. I was drawn to the inspiration picture from The Card Concept - I really love the candy colors against the white background, so I started pulling out similar colours from the Designer Series Paper Stack and created a striped background on a white card base. Then I started going through my current stamps to find something fitting. I initally had settled on the Bubble Over stamp set. I started stamping the bottles in colorful hues, but I wasn't really getting inspired by the result. Then I spotted the Clowning Around stamp set on my desk. I had initially pulled it out to make a card based on the song I was talking about. Then I put the stamp set, and I pulled it out again last week after seeing an ooold card I made back when the stamp set was issued, probably a good decade ago, on which I had used my Perfect Layers tool to make a funky shaped main image and mat it. It inspired me to try to make a modern version of that card, and then I suddenly realized that I could make all of those various different ideas come together on a single project! The bright colors from the background I had just created were perfect for the clown and once I switched to that idea, the ideas started coming really fast.

Back in the days, I used to ink the image with markers, huff on the stamp and stamp the image. In all honesty, while it was creating a fun colorful image, it also made for very muted colours because the markers were not as vivid as ink direct to rubber. The last time I ran into this problem, I placed the stamp in my stamping platform, inked one area with markers at a time and reinked with markers two or three times for each color getting a really crisp colour. But this stamp set is old and mounted on wood blocks. This might be the first time in my life I have been unhappy about wood-mount stamps (I've gotten used to unmounted, but I still very much love wood-mount). To get around the problem, I stamped the clown various times and paper-pieced him to get a vivid image in multiple colors.

Because the sentiment was long and obviously not something I had on hand, I decided to handwrite it, and for a fun look, I decided I would write around the clown! This was good timing, as this week's Just Us Girls challenge calls for hand-drawn elements. Finally, I went looking around for balloons, and the ones I had in Stampin' Up! sets matching the punch were unfortunately too big for the scale of my card, but I remembered that I had a few bouquet of balloons in MFT sets, and  I found what I was looking for in the Happy Hippos stamp set. The balloons were colored with Stampin' Blends markers. (I'm really happy to have alcohol markers that match my SU! cardstock and papers. Now that we have a wider range of colors available, I'm using them more and more.)

Finally, I added a tiny ribbon bow on the matching strip of paper, and I matted my funky image with a piece of black glimmer paper, using my Perfect Layers ruler. I wish I had not added the pants with Dimensionals and added the pearl and Candy Dots BEFORE I used the Perfect Layers, but I managed to make it work nonetheless - just with a bit more effort.

 

 

 

  

 

Stampin' Up! Supplies (unless otherwise noted)
Stamps: Clowning Around; Happy Hippos (My Favorite Things)
Cardstock: Thick Whisper White, Black Glimmer Paper
Designer Series Paper Stacks: Brights, Subtles, 2018-2020 In Color
Inks: Poppy Parade, Pineapple Punch, Mango Melody, Balmy Blue,
Granny Apple Green, Petal Pink
Accessories: Brights Candy Dots, Pearl Basic Jewels, Stampin' Dimensionals,
Perfect Layers, Basic Black Stampin' Write Marker, Stampin' Blends Markers,
Pineapple Punch 1/8" Grosgrain Ribbon; Happy Hippos Dies (My Favorite Things)

 

Comments

[carol]

OHMYSTARS! I'm smiling alllll over my face in seeing your fabulous card! The stamped image is delightful and your hand-written sentiment, simply awesome! A cheerful, fabulous card in every way! Thank you so much for sharing this marvelous creation in the JUGS Hand-drawn Elements Challenge gallery!
~carol

[Kim]

This card is super fantastic! It fits our challenge perfectly and I'm so glad you shared it with us at The Card Concept.

[Nancy Penir]

Oh my gosh, how fabulous is this??? LOVE your pieced clown holding balloons (loved your story about Perruse), and the colorful background. And hand written sentiment? WOW! Just adorable! I'm so glad you decided to play along at the Card Concept!

[Vicki Finger]

I love the way your patterned papers all work together without being distracting! Great Job! Thanks so much for joining in at The Card Concept this time around!

[Susan Powell]

ohhhh I love that your stripes all have patterns on them - so fun!! And that clown is super cute with the oversized pants. Thanks so much for joining us at The Card Concept.