Boardwalk Beach Hut

Hello everyone, so lovely to be here today.  Busy schedules over the last week or so have left me feeling a bit cut off from Craftyblogland - but I'm back to share another of my creations with the fantastic new Artistic Outpost stamp set Boardwalk, and to catch up with some visiting to see what you've all been up to as well.


This little beach hut was already sitting on my craft table before I knew anything about the new stamps.  In fact it was on the UK craft table all by itself all the time I was away in the Czech Republic. 



And when I saw these Boardwalk images (online whilst still in CZ) I knew that the beach hut would really come into its own as soon as I could get home and marry it with the stamps - which were also by that point waiting for me in the UK.... complicated, I know - welcome to my itinerant world.



(Crafting is really not a very good hobby to have if you're going to be mobile.  People have expressed surprise at how much stash I seem to travel with.  Well, here it all is a couple of weeks ago - packed up to come home to the UK again. 

 
Fortunately we travel by car, so I can be fairly generous with my supplies, but of course it's also important to get your packing priorities right...

Most of this is stash - um, yup, that's two big black boxes piled on top of each other, plus many orange boxes collected from the market and rammed full of stuff, various shoe-boxes, bags and tins, plus the Tim Holtz cargo case - while the small red suitcase contains my clothes for ten weeks!)

The beach hut itself is from Calico Crafts, as are the DecoArt paints I used on it, but I brought in some PaperArtsy crackle glaze to get my weatherbeaten paint look.














I also used one of the Generation Redux stamps - the bubbles - for some additional texture; and inked with Pumice Stone and Walnut Stain for added distressing.















The stamping is done in Cobalt Archival or Memento Teal Zeal, or sometimes both together blended on the stamp.

The trio of bathing beauties is such a fabulous image - I love it!

And this glamorous woman under her sun umbrella is a delight too...

The trio of seashells take their place on the front door, and there's a cute little hook on the back of the hut should you wish to hang it up for display.








Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Don't forget that, until June 8th, there's 15% off all rubber stamps at Artistic Outpost, and if you've got at least one AO image on your project, you can enter it for the prize draw in the Monthly Referral Programme on the blog.

And in honour of my four Bathing Beauties, I've a favourite poem to share.  It's by e.e.cummings again - he of the no punctuation, strange spacing and no capital letters style - just let it run free!

maggie and milly and molly and may 
went down to the beach(to play one day) 

and maggie discovered a shell that sang 
so sweetly she couldn't remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star 
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing 
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone 
as small as a world and as large as alone. 

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me) 
it's always ourselves we find in the sea
e.e.cummings

I'd like to enter this in the following:
At Artful Times they're looking for Vintage makes
As it's a wooden beach hut, a cheeky entry for Into the Woods at Simon Says Stamp and Show
Anything Goes is the challenge at Simon Says Stamp this week