Odds and Ends

Hello everyone and welcome - for the second time today, perhaps - so let's offer up an especially big welcome to the newest followers... so happy to have you with us.

If you missed it at midnight, check out my offering for you for the new Artistic Stamper challenge, In the Garden.

But here and now it's time for some inspiration for the Our Creative Corner May challenge.

The fabulous Linda Coughlin - a.k.a. The Funkie Junkie - is offering us the chance to play with our scraps again, so if you Love Your Leftovers, come and join in.

Everything on my hanging was sitting around on my craft table, either leftover, or half-made and abandoned, or simply experimental... then left lying around.

So the background paper for my main image was leftover from my beer mat Artist's Trading Block a month or so ago.  I stuck it onto a Tando Mixed Media Board whose painty surface had ended up not pleasing me, so needed covering with paper.

I also stamped the lovely Artistic Outpost Cocoa Boy (from the Think and Wonder stamp set - maybe he'll grow up into a Coffee Guy (Generation Redux) one day!) onto it at that point, thinking how well the Potting Soil Archival looked against the stony background.

And then I stalled... so there he sat on his Mixed Media Board (MMB), waiting for further inspiration to strike.  Enter Linda's challenge theme...







The Honeycomb Frameworks were part of an experiment with the Wendy Vecchi Crackle Paste.  

I try out new products and techniques on tags (don't we all, thanks to Tim Holtz?!), and for this one, I'd put down the Gold Embossing Paste, allowed it to dry, and then added the Crackle Paste over the top.








Once that was dry and crackled, I blended Archival Inks over it as I'd seen Wendy herself do on her blog.

The tag sat there for a while (several days at least) and then as I was working on something or other I had what I thought was a brainwave, and cut the tag using the Honeycomb die.

I loved both the frames and the little pieces, and how the gold glowed from underneath.   

But somehow it didn't work on that particular project, so the honeycombs stalled too...

The bits and frames sat on my desk too for a good couple of weeks before this project turned up to give them a home.










They turned out to be just perfect to layer into the composition... and I enjoyed arranging them just on the edge of the MMB, so that they hang suspended there in mid-air.











I also had some Wallflower paper scraps left from making my Fragments wooden tag a couple of weeks ago.

I ran some of the leftover bits through the die too, so as to have some contrasting pieces of honeycomb.









Well, this new paper from Tim Holtz is far too beautiful to throw any of it away, even the smallest scrap.

When I made the Fragments, I had to cut quite unthriftily to get the flowers I wanted, so there were plenty of odd-shaped scraps left.












Some of the larger leftover pieces are tucked in behind the Cocoa Boy...

... ripped and rolled at the edges for extra texture and shabbiness of course.












All the layers create quite a lot of dimension which, as regulars will know, I love!













The MMB is quite thick and sturdy, so that helps.

There are always, but always, odds and ends of book pages lying around on the table.

I grabbed a couple of snippets and ran them through the BigShot with Tim's Movers and Shapers butterflies, and then inked the edges with Walnut Stain and Gathered Twigs.

Double inspiration from Linda here, as a couple of butterflies just like this arrived in one of my Funkie Junkie Boutique orders recently.












And the other thing which can always always be found on or around (or, in fact, usually underneath) the craft table is a pile of corrugated cardboard, so some of that was pressed into service as the base for the hanging.












A rough coat of WhiteWash DecoArt paint, and some Weathered White embossing powder, and it was good to go.  

I added some Weathered White embossing powder to the edges of the MMB too, to tie it in more strongly.  

And some eyelets and twine to hang the whole thing up by, of course.






I also did some spattering once it was all glued together, and overall I'm really happy with my scrappy little make... scrappy-happy, that's me!

Do hop over to Our Creative Corner and see what my amazing team-mates have been creating - I promise you'll be inspired!  And we'd love to see what leftovers you've got hoarded and how you press them into use... do come show us how much you Love Your Leftovers.

You'll find all the challenge guidelines and rules over at OCC, and you have until the 28th of the month.  There are lots of birthday celebrations over at OCC this month too, as we celebrate the one-year anniversary of the relaunch under Laura's ownership.  You'll find those details over at Our Creative Corner too...

Hope to see you there and/or In The Garden over at The Artistic Stamper challenge, where you have until the end of the month to play...

All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make, the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson