Challenge Hels...

...butterflies! Another card today which means that I am being sooooo good and keeping to my resolution of making at least two cards a week!!! I have started really enjoying this "challenge Hels" thing that I am setting for myself. For some reason, I find it quite inspiring to only be able to use a few ink pads and stamps. So the ingredients for this card were: Wild Honey, Vintage Photo, Shabby Shutters, Forest Moss and Frayed Burlap Distress Inks. And the "thing" I had to use was a butterfly but I wasn't allowed to use Grungepaper. The funny thing is that because I love using Grungepaper so much, I have this baaaad habit of reaching for it all the time and not thinking to use anything else.


So... I made an inky mess on the craft sheet to make the background - doing a Wrinkle Free Distress... and then I used a few of the Duke of Distress' stamps. I did a bit of Watercolour stamping... I think that of all the techniques out there, this is my favest... I love using spriggy and backgroundy flowers to do this... it just gives such a soft and pretty look. I did use a technique that I first saw Wendy Vecchi doing - basically you ink up the stamp with your chosen Distress Ink and then swipe either the same pad or a constrasting/co-ordinating one onto your craft sheet and then spritz with water... dip the stamp onto the inkyness and then stamp... so you get a variation on your watercolour image... how clever!!! So, the butterflies... no Grungepaper so I used inky cardstock that was left over from the piece I did for the background and sentiment... I inked the stamp with Wild Honey and then edged with Vintage Photo... then cut it out... flipped it over and blended more Vintage Photo onto the back... this gets rid of the white cut edges and also means that the image is blended in nicely.



So... last night the time came to stop pontificating and to actually do something to the... what I was calling... Doom of Trash. I decided that before I was allowed to make anything else, I had to tidy the Doom of Trash and turn it back into the Room of Stash. I was pleasantly surprised that it only took about an hour! Seriously, all those avoidance tactics of defrosting the freezer and de-fruzzing the cobwebs in the garage were actually more of a waste of time than actually doing the tidying. Once I started to put away stashly bits and bobs and sorted all the Christmas stash into one box it was remarkably easy. Mind you, I have got a really short attention span for all things...erm... tidy and did manage to re-ink all my Archival pads, the StaZon pads and a few Distress Pads. Well, it is another job off the list LOL Here's my desk after the tidying up... see, it even is shining clean!! oh and you can see the floor too!!!


Now, I don't know about you but... I have been keeping offcuts of Grungepaper and Grungeboard and putting them into a pile... along with off cuts of paper and card... well, I saw this humungus (is that how you spelll humungus? Or is it humungous???) heap of offcuts, sorted through them to keep the larger bits that were actually usable and... binned the rest!!! I know!!! I am becoming a neat freak!!! Nah, I'm not... but the thought of it is nice! LOL Anyways, now I have a lovely tidy room I can have an inky afternoon - and yes, this time I will deffo be tidying away afterwards... promise... well, for the time being anyway! Thanks for looking... have a great day! Oh and... a new Sunday Stamper theme tomorrow :O)) TTFN

Hels x