L is For...

...Late!  On Sunday, after my last workshop of the day, I popped back to my demo desk and was greeted by some lovely ladies (sorry, I didn't get your names) and I was doing a super speedy demo with Distress Stains and the gorgeousness that is Studio 490.  Well, because I was so engrossed in what I was doing, the show actually closed!   Whooops!  And I didn't get a chance to finish my creation.  Anyways, I promised I would blog the finished piece, so here it is, better late than never right?

The base is the middle of a Rectangle Art Part, coloured with Crushed Olive Stain, dried, another coat of Crushed Olive for goodly measures and dried again.  A good tip to remember when you are colouring your Art Parts with wet stuff, dry it straight away.  It is, after all, a paper product, leave it to dry naturally and you will get little bubbles under the paper where it has separated the squished (sorry, compressed) layers.  Anyways, as well as inking the base, I also stamped it.  Firstly with that luuuuush honeycomb background from Art For You - I wanted a rough look so only inked patches of the stamp with Olive Archival Ink.  A quick zap with a heat tool to set the Archival and on to the next step, which was adding the floral border along the bottom edge.

This was simples to do: ink up the whole stamp with Olive Archival and then go in with a babywipe to remove the green from the flowers, then use the corner of a Vermillion pad and ink the flowers, stamp, voila, border!  I just so happen to lurve this stamp - I think it is probs one of my most used in my collection.  No self respecting Art Part would look complete without a bit of sanding and aging, which is what I did around the edges before drawing a rough couple of lines around to add some faux stitches.  The Wildflower Art Part was stamped with the co-ordinating stamp, coloured with DI/DS and popped onto the base with Cosmic Glue (THE best glue!)    Adding a word is always a good thing so I used the Funky Words Stencil for Art, using a Sharpie Paint Marker to draw through the letters.  Finally, three butterflies stamped onto Grungepaper with Jet Black Archival and then cut out, coloured with Fired Brick and popped onto the piece.  A smidge of rusty wire makes a hanger and ta-dah!  We are done.  See how simple the Art Parts are to use!  Seriously, I can't do difficult (ok, I can be difficult but that is a whole different thing lol) which is probably why I love my Art Parts so much, simply ink, colour, stamp, paint, paper cover etc and assemble!  

Anyways.  Let me tell you about my little jolly japestering that I did last night!  I got a packet of those Hallowe'eny plastic critters from the £1 shop last week.  In the packet were two big fat black spiders.  One of them went onto my Hallowe'en H earlier in the week so I was left with one big fat one.  So, whilst Grim was otherwise occupied (playing Angry Birds.... am sure he is addicted to that game lol) I crept into our bedroom and snuck said spider under the duvet on his side.   And waited.  And waited some more.... and tried my best to get him to go to bed... I was impatient you see... which is never a good thing when you have a jolly jape in-store.  When he finally won his tournament (seriously, I am singing the Angry Birds song in my head alllllllll day... and allllll night rofl) he went to bed... and.... pulled back the duvet... and... *there I am, poised to pee my pants* went "oh, a spider"  And that was it!  Pah!  I shall have to get up earlier if I want to fool him I reckon.  Well, unbeknownst to me, he has put said spider under my side of the duvet.  I went to get into bed and do admit to having a little jolt of "what the ????" when I pulled back the duvet.  Akkk, I am rubbish at practical jokes, methinks I need to go and buy one of those fake dog-poo's and see about putting that in his work boot.  (don't tell him though, that would ruin the surprise!)   Right, I shall away.  I had a lovely afternoon yesterday, we went shopping... and came home with a bag of cat lit (oh boy, we know how to live on the wild side!)  But.  We did see a rather splendid dining room table... so I think we may go back today and look at it again... you never know, I might come home with a tin of cat food today *stop me now, I can't cope with the excitement rofl*  Thanks for looking... TTFN!

Hels x