Monday, January 23, 2017

Spread Your Wings...

Hi Everyone...welcome to another week on the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge Blog...thank you for joining us for last week's "Chill Out" challenge...we hope you can join us this week too because...

and the theme for this week is...
SPREAD YOUR WINGS
I decided to have some fun creating a textured background for a kaleidoscope of butterflies but discovered it wasn't going to be all plain sailing...lots of chopping and changing my mind as I went along but hey that's crafting for you. I started by giving the journal pages a coat of White Gesso and while it was still wet applied the butterfly tissue tape...an oldie from Tim Holtz but still one of my favourites and then applied Prima 3D Matte Gel randomly with my fingers and combed through to create texture with this cool tool from Prima...
 and sprinkled it randomly with Prima Mini Art Stones...oh boy these little blighters fly everywhere...
and while I was waiting for it to dry I die cut the Sizzix/Tim Holtz Butterfly Duo from white cardstock covered with the Dina Wakley Media Tape...
I coloured the butterflies and the textured areas of the background with Tea Dye and Iced Spruce Distress Crayons from Set 10...one of the new sets launched recently at Creativation...
a collection of gorgeous Vintage Colours
Tea Dye, Iced Spruce, Aged Mahogany,
Gathered Twigs, Wild Honey and Forest Moss
 and I think this is going to be one of my favourite sets...

I used Tim Holtz/Stampers Anonymous Halftone and Rings inked with Tea Dye Distress Ink and Ranger Black Archival to add interest to the background...
at this point I had a change of heart about the Tissue tape and decided to cover the original tape with the Dina Wakley Media Tape to match the butterflies...gave it a light coating of Gesso...created a shadow with Walnut Stain Distress Crayon and highlighted the textured areas on the backgroundwith Picket Fence Distress Crayon. But now the Media Tape seemed to be overpowering the background and the whole project was teetering on the brink of landing in the bin...time to look out my trusty Lots of Dots stamp set...inked with Versamark and heat embossed with White Detail Embossing powder in an effort to soften the background somewhat...
and then I realised that stamping on this textured surface was not going to be easy so I die cut some circles from Tim's Melange Tissue Wrap...
stamped letters from the Worn Text Alphabet stamp set with Black Archival...
fixed them in place with Distress Collage Medium Matte and added Label Letters. I was tempted to doodle scribbly lines around the circles but the way this had gone so far...decided I wasn't going down the "where angels fear to tread route" and just added dots with Ranger's Black Fude Ball Pen instead.  I added antennae and threaded buttons to the butterflies...

and then after all's said and done I discovered the camera didn't like the colours I chose and I spent the next couple of hours trying to get a half decent photograph...but that's the name of the game in the wonderful world of crafting.

You can find all the products I used over at the fabulous Simon Says Stamp online store...just click on the links below...

Why don't you pop over to the Monday Challenge Blog and check out the amazing creations from my very talented Design Team mates and as always you all have the chance to win a $50 gift voucher to spend at Simon Says StampYou have until Monday 8am Ohio time...1pm UK time...2 pm CET to join in...

You can also follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram
and if you use Instagram...
please add #sssmchallenge to your entry uploads so we can see them on there too
I look forward to seeing what you create this week...
Have Fun and Happy Crafting
Hugs Kath xxx