Butterfly Tag - Saturday 11th August

Good Morning Blog Friends!

A very big welcome to my new followers and thank you for stopping by and deciding to follow me! When I first started my journey into 'blog land' about a year ago, I had no idea what to expect...one thing I wanted to do was share my work (good and bad!) and to visit and learn from fellow crafters....so far I have met some lovely crafty people on here, who have amazing blogs of their own and whom it has been such a pleasure to interact with. I really love to visit all your blogs, post a comment and I do read all your posts (but please forgive me if I don't respond to them all), so if you have a blog and I've not picked up on it, please let me know. I'm almost half way to my 50 followers first milestone, when I'll be sending out some Craft Candi, so please spread the word!

I try and post most days, it depends on how busy I am really...I work three days a week and I also undertake commissions, so sometimes I can't post those particular cards for quite a while. I also try and 'mix things up'. My crafting passions are stamping and getting 'inky', Promarkers and Spellbinders. My main love is paper crafting, but not just cards. I really enjoy scrapbooking and trying out new techniques, some of them experimental, by creating canvases and other pieces of 'art'. So when you stop my, you will mostly, but not always see cards. My tastes? Hmm..well I love 'girly' but equally I really like Steampunk! I will try anything...as I say, I like to mix it up!

This year I embarked on something I had been hoping for the chance to do for some time, when my friend Amy, who co-owns a beautiful local gift and craft shop with her Mum, invited me to start teaching paper craft classes with her. We have been doing one a month since April, looking at different inking techniques and with some die-cutting as well and have had full classes so far. I can't tell you how much I have been enjoying this experience and next year we are also intending to start some scrapping workshops.

The workshops have been really exciting for me and long may they continue and lately I have been very excited to join the Emergency Crafters Design team and have just been chosen for one of the new DT members for Fantastic Ribbons. All of this has meant so much to someone who has been passionate about all things 'arty' since helping her dad mix paints in his little garden studio as a child, I wish he was still here now that I have finally found the perfect work/art balance and am able to devote more time to my passion.

Yesterday I spent almost a whole day on a special canvas project: yes I know I should have been out in the sun, but I was able to work on part of it out in our summerhouse/craft space and have our hens for  company as they basked in the shade of the doorway! It was way too hot to sleep last night,so I stayed up really late, with my Promarkers colouring in stamped images for Christmas cards, it did the trick, I was so tired when I finally crawled into bed I didn't care how hot it was!

Butterfly Tag

Today's tag is a piece a created a few weeks ago in preparation for our last workshop, a little tag.

The tag itself is just a parcel tag and I started off stamping a script across one side and 'off the page', just very faintly, enough to show through, Then I placed a floral mask (That Special Touch) over the tag and spritzed through it on to the card using Eqyptian Blue and Raspberry Cosmic Shimmer mists. 

I had also stamped two butterflies, one from a Kanban stamp set and the other an Indigo Blu stamp, which was free with Craft Stamper magazine a few months back, these were spritzed at the same time.

These dry pretty quickly, but I used a heat tool to speed it up and then inked around the edges of the tag, slightly heavier on the opposite side to the script, using Shabby Shutters distress ink. I was aiming for a 'shabby' vintage effect.

My final piece of stamping was a leaf from a Wendy Vecchi Studo 490 stamp set which I stamped twice, the second time just for the shadow effect.

I finished off by inking some seam binding with shabby shutters and then stamping the script over it and using this, some ribbon and bakers twine for the final touch.

I'll be back later to visit the blogs of my blog pals out there,we've got quite a busy day today as we are collecting two more hens for our little brood...so excited!

Thanks for stopping by,

Carole X

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