Leaf print

Hi everyone, I can't remember the last time I sat down to make something that wasn't for a deadline of some sort, but I have snatched a little time this afternoon to enter the PaperArsty 'Shades of White' challenge...although this is a last minute entry into the challenge!
Life has been pretty hectic and although I've doodled and dabbled and been exploring eco printing of leaves on paper during the summer I've not yet made or finished anything until today.

Here's a little canvas I made this afternoon with a tiny leaf print.

I loved the topic intro (my kind of style) and all the posts have been inspirational but when I saw the Florence Adam post here, I knew I wanted to create a finished project.

Just a few step outs and apologies for photo quality this was tricky to photograph in the fading winter light.

I love using up scraps and there are so many shades of white in my scraps! I have used some gesso to soften some of the creamier tones.

It was fairly quick to assemble and there is some stamping on the vellum under the leaf print and I added a 'W' for white.

I think I went a bit overboard with the art stones though.

A rather quick blog post and here's a final pic.

In case you're wondering it's a eucalyptus leaf and I hope to do a blog post soon about my experiments with leaf printing, so watch this space.

As always thanks so much for stopping by and wherever you are I hope you're creating art!  R x

Inspiration post at Stamps and Stencils

Hi everyone, I have an Inspiration post over at Stamps and Stencils today and I've been using up long forgotten items and made a few Christmas cards along the way. Hope you'll hop across and be inspired. R x

Pastel...at Stamps and Stencils

Hi everyone, we have a new 'Pastel' challenge over at Stamps and Stencils hosted by the lovely Cec and here's what she has to say about it...

We have been treated to a riot of bright, warm colour since the spring bulbs made their appearance and continuing throughout summer and fall so let's go in the opposite direction and make a project with soft, pastel colours. Don't forget to include some stamping or stenciling or both in your creation.

I've chosen to get a little Christmassy and created a trio of snow capped houses. I quite often use pastel pink and blue on my Christmas cards, usually snowflakes or trees combined with glitter and bling so this seemed like the next step.

They will stand up and would be a fun project for children to be involved in as they are quick to decorate...maybe you could try creating a whole advent village.

They started off as several die cuts of corrugated card using Tim's Artful dwellings die and sandwiching together with PVA glue and washi tape around the edge. Lightweight but a great substrate for decorating.

I've used Fresco paints in Mermaid. Blush and Sage and stamping in Archival using some favourite  non Christmas plates by Lin Brown. It's always fun to find other ways to use stamps.

Kraft brown is a lovely complement to what I call ice cream colours, so I've used Cheery Lynn doily dies to add detail.

The inside of a doily created the little snowflake.

Clear crackle and shabby white frantage (no apology for using this again) for the snow.

The words are from the Alison Bomber winter plate and just fitted perfectly, a little gilding and ink around the edges and they're complete.

Hope you'll hop across to see more wonderful inspiration from the DT and join in our challenge. Rx