Wow, I finally managed to make something!

Hi lovely visitors and thanks for your visit today.

Blimey hasn't the weather been awful again but unfortunately not quite bad enough here to blow the blooming fireworks out!  I should think we have a few more evenings of the darned things driving us and more to the point, the dog, crazy before we can relax of an evening again.  This morning though I have gorgeous sunshine beaming into my craftroom ;-).

Anyway, yesterday I sneaked in a crafty playday ...... at the expense of the bottomless ironing pile, lol!  All week I had been wanting to join in with the current PaperArtsy Blog Challenge because the wonderfully talented Jo Myhill had inspired me with her very first project of the week.  The other two are equally inspiring but I knew I only had time for one ................ at the rate I work anyway, lol!

I loved Jo's little wooden frames but only had one in my stash (bought from PaperArtsy at the StampMagic Show a couple of weeks ago) and it is bigger than Jo's at 15 x 15 cm so I decided to turn mine into a Christmas decor piece but still following Jo's techniques in the main.  This is the result!

Although I have quite a few PaperArtsy stamps in my collection I don't yet have any Christmas ones yet (really fancying some of the JoFY ones ;D) but I did use the Mini 61 script, a border from HP1102 and a little circle from HP1008 for the centre of my Shrink flowers.  The Merry Christmas and flowers that I stamped the Shrink Plastic with are from my other collections.   The photos follow the sequence of events in the progress of making this project although, as usual I got carried away getting painty and kept forgetting to take some stages, lol!

I used Fresco paints, Archival inks and Treasure Gold throughout.

                                      

When I painted the shrink plastic I thought what a bl....ooming mess, lol, but once I had stamped all over it it looked much better and once cut out and shrunk I was really pleased with it.

Here's a before and after shot.

                                       


                                       

As Jo said it does take on a sort of velvety look and feel but you do have to be careful when handling it as it's easy to flake off the Frescos.  Jo was right about the patience you need to let it all dry too ;-) not to mention assembling the flowers!

                                       

I stamped and die cut the sentiment using a piece of the Shrink plastic I had left over.

Being me I wanted to add more foliage and so I used my Tim Holtz garland to cut various pieces from card painted with Holly and Claret Frescos.

                                       

The Arty Inklings Challenge is anything Christmas so I'm going to enter this project there too.
EDIT  I'm also entering this into the Stamping Sensations Challenge which is Christmas.
            and The Artistic Stamper November Challenge which is also Christmas.
EDIT EDIT (lol) I'm new to entering multiple challenges and yesterday I linked up to the
                     Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge which was anything goes but forgot to put a link back                        to their blog on here.  The challenge has closed  now so it's probably too late but I'm going to                        link anyway 'cos there are such fab things to see over there.

                                           

Well, I still haven't made any Christmas cards but I'm really pleased with this little decoration.  Thanks for getting me started Jo.

Hope you all enjoy what's left of the weekend.  Till next time ................

Hugs
Lesley  Xx