Speckled Egg Combinations

Hello all!  Thank you so much for your lovely comments about my Speckled Egg speckled eggs tag.  I've been continuing to have a wonderful time playing with my Speckled Egg Distress Ink and Oxide, combining it with various other favourite colours to see what I get... and here's what happened, pretty much entirely unexpectedly!

Even though the colour palettes are quite different, I found myself creating something of a trio, particularly in the fact that each of them has one of my hovering quotes, stamped and embossed on acetate.







It may mean you can't quite make out all the words from a distance or on a photo, but up close as you hold them and move them around, it's perfectly easy to read them clearly.













What you gain is that you can still see the whole of the background and/or stamping underneath the acetate.















And in the sunlight, you also get the magical bonus of the shadow words being cast on the tag below.














So obviously all the smooshed backgrounds have Speckled Egg involved - these are Speckled Egg Combinations, after all - both Ink and Oxide formulations.  This one also has Mowed Lawn, Peeled Paint and Stormy Sky in the mix.














Then there are some of my favourite Rubber Dance tendrils from the Weed Love stamp plate...















... and a cobweb, clear-embossed to glimmer with dew.














And I'm really pleased with my Queen Anne's Lace stem.  It's one of Tim Holtz's stamps, stamped in Olive Archival, but then I scattered some Vanilla White Wow embossing powder on the flower head.















It took some careful brushing with a very fine brush, but I managed to clear most of the stems in between the heads to get the lovely detailed finish.












And I have to say I'm rather in love with this method of adding a quote!  The quotes on all the tags are from my latest PaperArtsy collections - this one is from EAB18 Gardens & Growth.














The quote is by Frances Hodgson Burnett who wrote A Secret Garden.  There's something rather wild and secret about the garden in this tag, so that seems highly appropriate!















Next up a combination with Speckled Egg, Vintage Photo, Rusty Hinge and a touch of Pumice Stone.  I love the vibrancy of this, with the chalky Speckled Egg Oxide adding that lovely weathered patina effect.  
















I don't seem to have any pictures of this one in its unfinished state, but it's pretty straightforward.














The TH compass is stamped and embossed in Emerald Creek's Turkish Bronze powder.













The metal cogs are altered with Distress Paint - Speckled Egg, with touches of Weathered Wood and Frayed Burlap - and then sanded back.  (I've only got a few DPs in my travelling stash, but I seem to have picked good ones... obviously Speckled Egg had to come!)
















There's a bit more background detail stamping, also embossed with the Turkish Bronze.  The golden glow against the rusty browns makes me happy.













And the quote, hovering on the acetate here is from EAB19 Life & Living, and again embossed in the Turkish Bronze.  I concede that with all that gilding catching the light I haven't got a photo where you can read the entire quote in one go...











... but I hope that you can see from the various photos from different angles that all the words are there, so when you hold the tag and rotate you get to see the whole of Ralph Waldo Emerson's idea: All life is an experiment.  The more experiments you make, the better.











And finally the one which, as I was making it I was least certain about, and by the end is maybe my favourite.

With Ground Espresso, Pumice Stone and Stormy Sky mixed in with the Speckled Egg, the drama of light and dark is quite spectacular.  (The lights are just where the manila tag is bare or almost bare of ink.)













The stars are done with crackle paste through one of the Tim Holtz stencils.













They've had a little bit of watery ink dribbled over them to highlight the cracks, so they so have a touch of Speckled Egg blue about them.













Down in the bottom corner I stamped one part of the giant Glorious Garden stamp.  I love the weeds and stalks in this section, giving it a very wild look.  I used a wash of white paint to add some highlights to the petals of the larger flowers.














It's embossed with Wow Primary Bark to give it a bit more presence against the dark Ground Espresso background, so you also get that light-catching glimmer that I love.












And the quote is embossed in Bright White - Vincent van Gogh dreaming amongst the stars.














What with the quote (and its magical shadow) and the stars and the wild flowers and branches, it's all a bit Midsummer Night's Dream for me, this one.




















So there you have it... three tags I never meant to make!

I'm so thankful for the arrival of Speckled Egg - it really seems to have reignited my mojo.  I'm having such fun playing with it and trying it with different colour combinations.

























And then once you've got these lovely backgrounds, it seems wasteful not to take them on the journey towards completion.

My limited travelling stash is also forcing me back towards more stamping than I've been using lately, which is another boost to the mojo.



























I hope you enjoyed these because there are quite a few more tags on their way to you in the next days and weeks (as and when I get time to blog them!)... they are piling up on my craft table!

















I hope you're all well.  I've been spending more time at the craft table and less time online - which has to be a good thing - but I'll be round for another catching up session soon.  Stay safe and well - best to stay at the craft table if you can as infection rates rise again... what a good excuse!  Happy crafting all!

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius

Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.
Wassily Kandinsky