Hello, hello! (For just this once I will pretend I speak French:)

Bonjour! Bienvenu chez Inspired by!

Each month Riikka and I challenge each other to create something with a particular theme or thing in mind. This theme or thing can be anything and although interestingly I’ve said before that it was connected to most of our Inspired by challenges in the past… this month Riikka and I really were inspired by PARIS, France.

Paris is currently on our minds a lot because Version Scrap is coming up soon and we’re both extremely looking forward to it!

I sent Riikka a little care package as a starting off point (which she Instagrammed here). I had similar stuff to play with, but I didn’t use any of it… Well, I did and I didn’t.

Let me explain…

It took me a while to figure out I needed to step away from the package contends. I needed to, because although I had picked them myself, they somehow didn’t speak to me. And I could, because our prompt after all wasn’t the just the package… It was the City of Light!

I thought about all the times I’ve been to Paris…  The last time I went (in 2010), I visited Créations & Savoir -Faire and I saw the beautiful, inspirational Marie-Claire Idées displays and projects from up close. I also thought about what I associate with Paris in general… Turns out that fashion, perfume and style are a big part of it.

It didn’t click for me until I saw Julie Fei-Fan Balzer do her Stenciling Live: Faces Spreecast. Some of the faces on her stencils are like the faces you see in fashion magazines… Parisian fashion model faces…

Are you sensing where I’m going here?

I wasn’t interested in face stencils at all before, but seeing Julie’s video cast about them made me want to try one out. My local craft store unfortunately doesn’t carry Julie’s (face) stencils, but I did find one by the Dutch company Pronty.

Whilst I was browsing the craft store, a fashion shoot I saw in Marie-Claire Idées (the same one I had sent Riikka) came to mind…

Aaaand… the rest is history!

Here’s my result:

I used fabric sprays (to colour the chiffon flowers), Talens Ecoline, UniPosca Markers, Letraset Flexmarkers, gesso, paint, gel medium, stencils, glitter liner, pencil.

I got my hands (and sleeves…) covered in paint, but is was worth it! I’ve had so much fun making this and I can’t be happier with the result!

Now it’s time to visit Riikka and see what awesomeness she has come up with! I think I already saw a sneak peak on Instagram… Off to check if I’m right!

Last but not least: if you are going to be at Version Scrap, I would love to know! Maybe we can meet up!