A Simple Gift

Hello everyone!  First of all, thank you so much for your amazing feedback for the last couple of posts... Craftyblogland is so full of lovely, generous people.

Next, as some sort of recompense, I offer you the joys of an Artistic Outpost bloghop, with inspiration on offer from my fabulous team-mates at AO.  It's a Designer's Choice theme, so you'll get to see them let off the leash... well worth a moment of your time, I promise you!

So here's the full itinerary:

Lisa Somerville, Suzanne Czosek, Tracy Evans, Linda Coughlin,

Alison Bomber, Terry Horrall, Kate Yetter

And if you're already en route, then here, without more ado, is my contribution.

Well, with Designer's Choice, the chances were that blue and green might feature...















You could probably have put money on either Generation Redux or Think and Wonder stamps putting in an appearance - you'd have won on the former (though I started out planning on using the latter).













What were the odds on hedgerow flowers putting in an appearance? These little tiny ones are also from the Generation Redux plate.












And do I see any takers for crackle technique?  Fresco Crackle Glaze, come on down!

Yup, well, after all the boundary pushing of the last couple of posts, I needed a return to normal service...












It's all done on one of the lovely papier mâché hanging boards, so I was also able to follow my heart and carry on over the edges with all my favourite things.










I started with book pages, white-washing and crackle glaze, and then started adding the stamping in Olive and Fern Archival inks.

The inky effects are courtesy of Distress Stains over the whitewashed background.














I also added one of my new favourites.  The vine from the Hayride plate seemed to fit right in.













Ooh, I nearly forgot stencilling with texture paste - how is that possible?  

I used my lovely Magenta stencil to add these little butterflies, and tinted them using Distress Inks.












I added a wash of pearly shimmer using Liquid Pearl diluted with water.  A bit smudgy but, hey, I'm embracing imperfection!













(There are some round the side too, of course.)














The quote is from another favourite, the Kudzu Kafe set.












And one brand new thing (well, two really) to add to all these old favourites...

I got these lovely wooden laser cut hedgerow flowers from a Polish online store, the UHK Gallery - incredibly reasonably priced, lots of lovely shapes, beautiful quality, and a pretty good postage rate too. 














(Beware, they're listed as "chipboards" according to the Google translation!)












I used Distress Inks to stain them in blues and greens - other shades got added once I started inking the whole piece later.

Then I used Liquid Pearl to create the little flower heads on each stem.  I love the dimension, but it's quite a long drying time - I'm not a fan of waiting around!

I also used an Inkessentials white pen to create blossoms on the main image to echo my pearly ones.












And that's pretty much your lot for today here at Words and Pictures but, as I say, there's lots more amazing inspiration up for grabs if you hop round to the rest of the team.  

If you get lost along the way, you'll find all the hop details here at the Artistic Outpost blog.  Hope you have a wonderful time!

Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein