For my wonderful Mum...

Hello.  Yes its me again already.  I've really been looking forward to blogging this project which I've made for my wonderful Mum with some of my newest Claritystamps and trying out embossing paste with a stencil (thanks Maria Simms, this was a new technique for me, and I love it!)  This is going to be a long one, but I hope you'll think it was worth it!

I wanted to make something a bit different for her, and started by covering a cardboard frame with some lovely Graphic 45 papers that I had in my stash.

Obviously I needed to tone them down a bit as this was only going to be a background.  I did this by sponging on some white acrylic paint over some areas and adding colour and depth in others with archival inks.

 

 

The next step was to add some texture with embossing paste.  I mixed in a little bit of mica powder to add a hint of colour.  I didn't worry about getting the paste too smooth and perfect, as I wanted to achieve a distressed and weathered effect.

 

 

Once the embossing paste was dry I added a bit more shade and definition with archival inks.  Next I used my Clarity Trellis stencil again, sponging through it with Versamark, for a random effect.  I embossed with sticky stuff embossing powder  and then sprinkled on some Glamour Dust glitter. 

 

 

I also added some texture to the paper for the centre of the frame, but I kept this a lot lighter as a background for my stamping.

 

 

First I added in some music score and 2 little birds in the background with archival ink.

 

 

I stamped the snowdrops onto tissue paper and cut them out before sticking down and colouring with distress markers.  You can also see that I stamped and embossed letters from the Word Chains individually to create the word "Mum" 

 

 

I used yellow, blue and a tiny bit of white Angelina Fibre to make the blue tit.

 

 

There was enough left over to make the 2 tiny blue tits.  I used my Tim Holtz dies for the flowers and the birdcage.

 

 

Finished at last!  As I am off to Shrewsbury for a days crafting with Maria Simms tomorrow, I spent a lovely afternoon with Mum, and gave this to her today, so I can share this with you now.  She loves it as I knew she would   If you pop by for a look I'd love to know what you think.  Till next time.  Xxx