Liebster Award

I am delighted to receive a very special award called the Liebster Award from Anne of Ink-a-Doodle-Do ! Merci beaucoup Anne (Anne lives in France) for selecting my blog, I need all the encouragement I can get ! Go and check Anne’s blog  and look up her recent Oriental screen card and her tutorial on Quilt like backgrounds. Not to be missed !

ABOUT THE AWARD

This award was designed to be a blog award in the pay it forward fashion. Once you've been nominated, you award it to five blogs that you like that have fewer than 200 followers, to encourage new visitors to visit these blogs.

RULES FOR ACCEPTANCE

Thank the person who gave you the award and link back to their blog. Post the award onto your blog. Give the award to five bloggers who you appreciate that have fewer than 200 followers. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know that you have given them this lovely award!

PAY IT FORWARD

Here are the five blogs I think deserve a visit :

Von of http://messyme-von.blogspot.co.uk/

Jenni of http://jennisjems.blogspot.co.uk/

Sylv of http://designsforoccasions.blogspot.co.uk/

Scrapmate of http://rockyroadink.blogspot.co.uk/

Paula of http://phcountrycreations.blogspot.com/

Come and play and discover new blogs...

Inspired By Linda Cain

This week Paper Artsy showcases work by Linda Cain and I took my inspiration very closely from this project. This time I only had to contend with one or 2 problems, so things are looking up !

Like Linda I used distress inks for the background but because I started on a gessoed chipboard panel (it was grey so I had to paint it white) I encountered my first problem. If you've never tried this before know that distress inks do not dry on gesso... even after using the heatgun on it, the inks still moved ! Which is why the colours are not very strong as past a certain point instead of adding colour the cut & dry just moves it around.
Before stamping I sprayed the panel with fixative to avoid smudging.

I used stamps from Hot Picks 1205 (the flower), 1203 (the leaves and sentiment), 1204 (the butterfly), coloured the images with pencils and then used  a white gel pen as per Linda's technique. I had never done anything like this before and I was determined to try but...my pen was not very cooperative. Although fairly new (less than a year old) the ink, when it starts flowing, leaves "dry" residue along with the normal gel. So I didn't go too far with this lest I made it worse !

Let me know what you think,

Paper Artsy Challenge

I haven't posted for a month, victim of creative block, evasive mojo whatever... I blame the awful winter grey skies and miserable rain ! To try and kickstart my crafting I have decided to enter the Paper Arsty challenge which this week features Helen Chilton and Crunchy wax.
Probably due to my lack of mojo, everything that could go wrong went wrong ! Starting by the technique showed by Helen with embossed Crunchy wax and inks. Except I used paints
and as a result the bricks (I used Tim Holtz bricks embossing folder) hardly look like bricks !
If you're looking for them it's the sand coloured splats.

I would have changed tack and used the crunchy wax over the splats but I didn't want any thickness as this (it's an A4 binder) is going to be handled a lot.
I had to use my Chicken wire mask (Crafter's workshop) as I am still trying to find the best technique with it, having discovered that sprays are no good (too much seepage under the stencil). This time I thought texture paste... which I mixed with black acrylic paint not expecting the mix to be quite that black ! To tone it down, I dabbed some silver ink on top with mixed results.

The main images are from Hot Picks 1202 and 1111, plus some bits and pieces from 1206 (obliterated under bricks and chickenwire on the left), 1207 and 1203.
For the background colours I used Fresco Rose, a bit of yellow and some blue acrylic paints, which I watered down a lot. I stamped some texture with craft inks all around the "page" in similar colours and then decide to spritz... my newly made DIY pink spray was a bit too vivid !
I used Aged Aqua and Aged Rose embossing powders in 2 corners.

Although it's not great I had thrown so much a it, it was time to stop...

Thanks for coming by,