Feeling Patriotic

A few months ago I ordered the Artistic Outpost London Underground Stamp set from Happy Daze.  I have to say that I absolutely love these stamps and with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and London 2012 just around the corner this theme remains on trend.  My first project was an altered frame for the Bramford Crop challenge, (see 26 February post).

Looking on the Happy Daze website a couple of weeks ago I noticed that the May blog challenge is 'May Queen'.  The instructions for taking part said: 'As it's the Diamond Jubilee next month for the may challenge we have a queenly theme. Think Maypole to welcome in the season of new growth, go patriotic and be Red, White and Blue, or just add a simple crown. Interpret the theme as you see it and what it means to you. But the main thing is to enjoy yourself and make something lovely to share with us for the challenge this month.  So I have decided to go patriotic with my mini easel. 

To create my background canvas colours I used Tim Holtz distress inks blue jeans and barn door.  Next I stamped the flag using a black archival ink pad and lastly added gold Ariondack acrylic paint dabber in the top corner.

I used the same colour ink pads on a smaller piece of card and stamped the sentiment, again in black.  I then used Ranger distress crackle paint - clear rock candy to cover the whole card.  I matted it onto white card stock and attached it to the canvas using double sided sticky foam.  Finally I attached a silver crown charm also from Happy Daze using Glossy Accents.

This is my first time participating in an online challenge, so now to work out how to upload my blog post to the website.  Hopefully I'll manage to join in each month going forward.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x

T for Tracey

The May Bramford Crop Challenge was set by Janet and consisted of a 3-d paper mache letter.  We each received our initial and I chose to alter my own although some of the girls decided to swap and alter each others shape.  I started the challenge almost immediately but after cutting the paper out didn't get a chance to finish it until today, hence this blog post is very late as is the challenge itself. 

First I covered each surface of the letter with Basic Grey basics paper, distressing the edges before fixing in place with glossy accents.  For the front of the 'T' I wrapped 2 different sized bands of ribbon, the smaller through a buckle round the trunk, I then placed some pearl bead swirls all over the surface and finally attached 3 tiny butterflies which were punched out of corrugated cardboard using a Martha Stewart punch.

 For the top I pierced a Tim Holtz memo pin through the shape and attached 2 larger punched butterflies with glossy accents, below this I placed 3 small flowers which I inked in brown.  I also placed 3 clear beads close by.  I then used small letters on a piece of brown card stock to create my name plate, covered it with Glossy accents and again adhered to the letter with more glossy accents.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x