Masque for the Ball

Today I took a detour into something a little more unusual. I decided to do a canvas piece a little mix media-ish combining resin, feathers, and paper elements. It is the mystery of a night, of time and masquerade.

Challenges

Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge: Celebrate
Try It On Tuesday: Leftovers and Scraps
Through the Craft Room Door: Anything Goes

Supplies

InLinkz.com

Putting It Together

One of the challenge inspirations is to use "leftovers and scraps". Thus, many of the items included in this project were things I had made or cut months ago and put into my basket of "hmmm" to possibly use at a later date. I will often make little experiments that I don't really have a use for, especially if I am between projects and poking about for inspiration. 

My basket is full of all sorts of bits, experiments with new dies or embossing folders. Cuts I made while working out a layout, and other stuff. I have only been playing this ardently with paper since Oct/Nov 2015 so my similar stash of do-dad experiments for resin, beading, and other media is a lot more substantial, oh and this is only the basket of little stuff, the bigger paper stuff is in a drawer (and finally moved off of half of my table).

The masque in this piece is one such resin experiment. I'm sad to say I don't have any photos of it in progress, or none that I could find that I took while making it. I might just have to make another one *laugh*. Basically, you can make just about anything into a mold. I used a rubber texture tile (one used for shaping clay) and a metal cookie cutter. I put mold release on the cookie cutter and sealed the edges where it met the texture tile with silly putty. Then I poured in a thin layer of resin. Oh, before I did that I added some colourant, Pearl Ex and Gilders Paste to the texture tile to have the colours meld with the resin as it cured. Yeah, I need to do another one of those some time. It's easy for me to explain, but not all that easy to picture in your head, right? Okay, suffice to say I had a 4" mask of resin in my stash of "hmm" for a while and this seemed a good time to use it. *laugh* 

While I was pawing through my paper cuts stash I saw the clock embossed and inked panel (with Vintaj patina inks, what I had at that time, since I had started with jewelry making stuff *laugh*) next to a wide decorative strip. I'm sure each was made shortly after I got the particular folder of die. I like rust colour with teal. It's a pairing that appeals to me in an odd way. 

I laid some items from my stash on my table and started shifting them around. An idea was blooming in my head.

I remembered I had a black canvas I have been wanting to use for a while and laid them out on there. Oh.. thinks I, yes, this will do. I wanted to add a touch of pearly white and found a sheet of the iridescent semi-translucent vellum-ish Media Mixage paper that I had used to cut this exact die for a different project. The sheet had just this die cut from it to make a perfect inlay location with the black background.

I decided I didn't want just a black background and so I liberally sprayed the canvas with Perfect Pearls in water. I used Grape Fizz and Confetti White. Then, which trying to dry it with my heat tool, I inadvertently touched the metal of the heat tool while it was hot. OW! Don't do that. 

I decided to trim the clock panel, trim out the 'blank areas. I added peacock herls, pearls and rhinestones as well to finish off the festive night mystery piece. It's the Belle of the Ball, with her masque. Time is Fleeting...