Unexpected post!!!

Hello Lovely Visitors,

Well, I hope you've all had as pleasant an afternoon as I have!  I was in my craftroom bright and early this morning as I have to get cracking on some DT stuff but inspite of a tidy up and good search in a few nooks and crannies I came up with a big fat nothing in my search for Mr Mojo.  I just couldn't get going and left it for a quick visit to Facebook where I left a comment on one of lovely Hels Sheridan's posts mentioning that I was struggling and bless her, she gave me a recipe challenge to try and kick start the creative juices.

I will confess here and now, I think I have only made something specifically for a challenge maybe twice in the past and never to a recipe and add to that the pressure of a challenge from THE FAMOUS HELS SHERIDAN, lol!  Her recipe was a tag, the scraped paint technique, background of stamped flourishes, paper flowers and the word 'believe'.  Strictly speaking I think I might have broken the rules a bit because I used more than a flourish stamp for my background but I've had loads of fun this afternoon and got really messy with the scraped paint technique ...... something else I've never done before ....... and at one point I thought it was going to end up in the bin.  However, I persevered and this is the result.

I used Claudine Hellmuth's Studio paints starting with covering the whole tag in Trad Tan and then using an old credit card to scrape on Real Teal, Smidge of Blue and Blank Canvas and sometimes a mixture of the blue with the white.  I added a few streaks of Trad Tan with the edge of the card.  I had to fight very hard with myself to stop from blending it all together with a wet wipe, lol!

I stamped some flourishes from a Tim Holtz set using Versamark Cloud White and then again with second generation Archival Cobalt.  I did the same with a small Tim crackle stamp and then stamped the same flourish fully inked with Cobalt down the left side and a stamp from one of Tim's Classic sets down the right side.

The word 'BELIEVE' is from one of Tim's Christmas stamp sets, stamped in Black Archival onto white card which I then trimmed and inked round the edges with a dark blue Versamark.  I attached this with foam pads and set about layering and placing my paper flowers.  Most of these have been in my stash for years and I rarely use them because I usually make my own flowers.  A quick spritz with a Dew Drop Glimmer Mist mainly over the flowers and the addition of a few Ideology pearl drops and some ribbon and that's my tag.

What do you think?  Any constructive criticism welcome and I have had a lot of fun.  Didn't get any DT stuff done but maybe I've broken through the block so thanks a lot Hels!  Just one thing ....... I've been lucky enough to receive a few pieces of Hels' art and they are always so clean on the back.  I'd love to know how she does it 'cos mine is covered in paint, lol!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend folks and I do hope you don't get any more of the white stuff ...... unless you want it of course, in which case you can have whatever is coming my way ;D.

Hugs
Lesley  Xx