Try It On Tuesday – How Much Texture is enough?

Or alternatively, knowing when to stop!! The current challenge at Try It on Tuesday is TEXTURE and no, you haven’t got the dates wrong, I am adding my DT piece mid way through the challenge to hopefully give you some additional inspiration if all the DT yumminess last week wasn’t quite enough.

I’m still trying to emulate that Finnabair style and this piece has been several colours from completely white (it looked so nice I couldn’t decide what colour to add) to pink and finally sort of greeny brown. I haven’t quite captured the look for this one but I had great fun playing with my texture paste, stencil, paints, chipboard, die cuts and buttons (don’t you just love that cute flower button?) and of course flowers and I like it so that’s the point really. It really is amazing what you can do with just some paper and paint.
The base of this frame comes from Any Crafts a Pound and did, in fact cost me a £1. A £ well spent in my opinion. It needed a little re-inforcing on the bendy bits but otherwise is a great little greyboard frame – I shall pick up some more when I see them next at a show.















And of course the little beauty in the frame is my darling Chelsey. Thank goodness there is someone in the family who is photogenic!! (I must really like this photo, just realised I have used it before!)
So now it’s over to you to make something for the challenge at Try It On Tuesday. Remember we would like you add textures to your project.  The choice of what you do or use is up to you,  if you could tell us what you used that would be great.

This month our Sponsor is -

Smeared Ink

who are offering  a $10  prize to our  October winner.

So go on, join in!!

I am entering this piece in the following challenges:
Dream Valley Challenges #67 – Buttons
All Crafts Challenge - Anything but a Card
Natalie & Amy - Shabby Chic

February Art Draw - it's Luvverly!!

If I do say so myself. Not often I'm tempted to keep my giveaways and fob you off with something else but am quite pleased with the way this turned out ...... but I'll stick to the original plan, especially as I already gave you a sneak preview before I went away.

My original inspiration came from two projects in February's Craft Stamper Magazine - 'Their Hearts Connected' by Louise Crosbie (AKA Zuzu) and 'A Splash of Paint' by Trish Latimer. The minute I saw them I knew I wanted to make something similar and get very painty and inky!! I had already decided to do something romantic with hearts using my canvases - it is February after all - and originally tried a red, and then a red and purple colourway (you may remember the red canvases from waaaaaay back).


Somehow it ended up too harsh looking so I softened it with gesso, some pink and added a touch of turquoise and I like it much better.

I really like using canvases 'backwards' for the possibilities they give as a kind of shadow box and I had two hanging about waiting for a project. The only trouble was they are quite small - about 7 x 10 cms - so finding teeny tiny things to go inside was a bit of a challenge. For the main message on the front which I wanted to be clear I stamped on to tissue first and then adhered with gel medium - I always find this works really well.

I did wonder at one point if I
had over mixed my metaphors so to speak as I seemed to have some funky paint effects going on and then went all vintage with a cherub and some tiny paper roses - but I decided  the colours held it all together.






And at last a use for one of those little corked bottles!! Bought them a year ago and they have been languishing in my stash ever since. Filled it with tiny silver stars as I couldn't find any tiny hearts in my stash.





Anyhow, enough of my waffling. If you would like to enter the Art Draw then leave a comment on this post before 9.00 pm on Saturday 25th February.

International players are very welcome. It always seems a bit cheeky to say this as I am not very good at any of this technical linking stuff but I would be very happy for you to link from your own blogs  - the more the merrier.

Finally, as I have been catching up in Blogland I have noticed there are a lot of challenges out there to do with Valentine's, hearts, romance..... there's definitely something in the air. So I'm linking this project to Snazzy's Design Team Blog Challenge # 1, Love/Romance. There are prizes!!! I've also linked in to the Link Party at Cindy Adkins' blog if you would like to join in as well. It also fits the theme for a new9ish) challenge blog  that I have come across - 'art with no boundaries'

October giveaway

This will be a quick turnaround as it's a topical - well halloween - theme and it would make sense to get it in the post to the 'winner' before it's all over.

It's actually designed to be a photo frame (I think) so you could easily replace the image I've used with one of the kids (or yourself!!) in appropriate Halloween mode.

All I have to do now is find a box to post it in!!

Usual 'rules' apply, leave a comment on this post before 9.00 pm on Sunday 16th October. International players welcome, feel free to link from your own blogs. Thanks for looking!!