In the Undergrowth (Again!)

Hi all!  First off, apologies for being so sluggish on the visiting again at the moment.  Busy work schedules plus crafty deadlines plus a stinking cold mean I haven't been able to keep up the momentum as I'd like ... it's just all a bit much right now.  But I'm missing my Craftyblogland fix!

I'm falling behind here too.  As well as trying to catch up on my Lynne Perrella samples (catch the stained glass here), I've realised I also have a massive backlog of projects which made their debuts elsewhere and which I've yet to publish here on Words and Pictures, to keep my crafty scrapbook up to date.  Since for the first time in forever I've got a quiet start to the month here, I thought I'd take the opportunity to post an Artistic Stamper project from January 2014.  If you saw it then, please don't feel you have to comment again - it's just so that I can (eventually) get everything under one roof, so to speak.

This is a folded tag which I made as my mother's (Cestina of Cestina's Dollshouses) birthday card last January (these people with birthdays so close to Christmas...).

As I correctly guessed at the time, her complaint was that there were no fungi amidst the undergrowth, but I think she liked it, nonetheless.  The folded wallet structure comes from Linda Coughlin's brilliant tags offered up as bonuses in her 2013 Funkie Junkie 12 Tags competition.  I loved making my version so much that I've added it to the repertoire!

I started with some wrinkle-free distress technique on a large tag - colours, I think, were Evergreen Bough, Broken China, Peacock Feathers, Peeled Paint, inks and stains combined.

I also added a couple of spritzes of Perfect Pearls Blue Patina to the craft mat, so there are lovely touches of shimmer.









I gave the edges a good inking with Walnut Stain - I never tire of how this gives such depth to the colours and draws the eye inwards.

There are a couple of flower stamps on the outside cover: the little one is from Botanical Plate 1, and the larger head is from Katy Fox's Encyclopaedia Botanica set...










... as is the little butterfly on the flap.  All the stamping is done in Archival Potting Soil.












I added some Idea-ology Foliage, positioning them so that the petals of the lower flower actually form the closure to tuck the tag behind (very pleased with this little brainwave - and it works beautifully!).


And then lots of painty splatter - one of my favourite things to do at the moment.
















Once you open it up, you're heading into the undergrowth (seems I like it in the undergrowth!)...

The layered background started with mopping up the leftover inks from the front cover's wrinkle-free distress - so you get a paler version of the same shades.


















Here you get the full version of Katy's large flower...
















There's a little bug on the inside of the flap... bugs like to hide under things, I find, don't you?!











There's some stencilling: Evergreen Bough through the Artistic Stamper Splats and Swirls mask, and Broken China and Walnut Stain through the Tim Holtz Bubbles stencil.













Then I got going with one of the Tim Holtz flourishes to add some detail into the layers.














The gorgeous wording comes from the fairly new Grungy Greetings plate - what a font! - and it's stamped (Potting Soil still) onto kraft card, and layered over an inked book page (and I promise I didn't notice the words surrounding it until I was taking the photos...)

Closed up again, you get a full version of the flourish on the back, and a little butterfly stamp (from Unity) that, with my monogram, seems to be becoming my "signature".







Thanks for stopping by today and for putting up with this catch-up post.  I'll be trying to feed a few more of them in here and there so that I can keep my virtual scrapbook up to date.  We'll see how that goes!!  Happy Crafting all!

The dream was always running ahead of me.  To catch up, to live for a moment in unison with it, that was the miracle.
Anaïs Nin