Let me count the ways...

Hello, and greetings from the Czech Republic, where all this crazy craftiness really began a bare 10 months ago!

Thank you all so much for your kind wishes for my Czech adventures.  I will do my best to keep you in the picture as we prepare the dollshouses for the museum opening - but the best place to keep up to date will be my mother's own blog about the journey which you can find here.

If you'd like to get some idea of the scale of the task ahead of us, check out this post.  I hope you'll forgive me for giving her blog a plug... it is Mothering Sunday, after all: it's the least I can do!




We've arrived just in time for me to share a quick tag card with you - it was just a little experiment to play with some of the new Distress colours I got myself at Stamperama.


Don't adjust your sets, this really is Words and Pictures, and yes... it's orange!!






It was also a chance to try out the Tim Holtz Fairytale Frenzy stamps which had been on my wishlist almost since I started crafting, and which I finally got at a price I could bear on ebay just before leaving the UK.

But it's appropriate to share it today, as I've just given it to my mother as her Mother's Day card (the UK version falls today), and it's even more urgent that I share it now, as I'd like to pop it into the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge By the Numbers.




The quote is from a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and it was my first thought when I saw the SSSaS challenge - words, pictures and numbers combined!  Some of you may know it better, of course, in the version written by Roger Rabbit...


And, like Roger, I've created my own variation too; so you start with the first half line on the cover, then undo the little paper raffia bows...












... to find the second half line on in the centre of the card...


... and finally my own little addition right on the back of the card (all stamped with the wonderful Hero Arts alphabet).






I played with two different TH techniques on the tag using the same colours: Spiced Marmalade, Worn Lipstick (not really showing much except in warming the other colours), Fired Brick.

On one side, now the outside, I did some wrinkle-free distress and on the other, now the inside, I blended them on and then spritzed and flicked.








I'm completely in love with the stamps, as I knew I would be.  Fabulous mad melting butterfly...














... gorgeous drooping vine, with its wonderful heart-shaped ivy leaves...











... and the fabulous grungy numbers... you can count on seeing lots more of all of these!!

All the stamping is done in Black Archival, and I did lots of doodling with the Inkssentials gel pen, just having fun.  


For the numbers on the back, I again took a leaf out of Tim Holtz's book, and brushed the ink onto the stamp rather than tapping it, so that you get a fainter image - a sort of "repeat to fade" effect to go with the "I'm still going"... the counting will be never-ending.







And, whilst we're on counting, I can't leave you without a little taster of my favourite Count of all, so along with today's words - the full Elizabeth Barrett Browning - you also get this little treat... it's even got Mother's Day flowers included!

Sonnet XLIII
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, --- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! --- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I'm entering this in the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge By the Numbers