WW #39 - LIFE'S A BEACH

I live near famous beaches and this week's challenge at Wicked Wednesday ATC is 'Life's a Beach'.
This could have been me as a little girl on Blackpool beach, glasses and all -

There were plenty of beach huts years ago but not now. However, they are being re-introduced in St. Annes on the Sea at a price of around £40,000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Think I'll stick to these little beauties which are some of my lovely friend Lindsay Mason's designs.
The base is mount board covered in mopped up ink from a previous project - don't waste ink on my craft sheet if I can help it. I used some sahara Terra which is gritty just like sand to make the beach and a couple of sand pies. The girl is an acrylic stamp from my stash which I coloured and cut out - wait for this - 'fussy'. I laughed so much when I read that bit on the little tutorial I did for Just some Lines this week. Jenn wrote it in because it means 'close to the lines'. I'm having that as my special word from now on. I also stamped, coloured and 'fussy' cut the beach huts, drew a couple of flags on the sand pies, stuck a few tiny shells at the bottom and 'Bob's your uncle' another challenge card done.
Great fun this.

WICKED WEDNESDAY ATCS CHALLENGE #14 - OCEAN/AQUATIC

All the deets for this super challenge are HERE.
I enjoyed this one - but then I enjoy all the challenges I have a go at - and got to use my precious Brixham shells again. Any excuse to use those because when they are all gone I will be able to make the excuse to go to Devon again for more!!!

The base is mount board covered in Terra - Sahara - which gives a sandy effect when dry smeared with a bit of broken china distress stain. I used the top of the branches from an Andy Skinner tree stamp to stamp sea weed in forest moss DI which I then clear embossed. The rest of the scene is made up of sea moss, Martha Stewart punched branches, shells, a sea horse charm, a fish button, some sparkly sticky gems and a brass anchor embossed with aged mahogony distress embossing powder. The whole effect was glued together with multi matt medium.
Thanks to Wicked Wednesday ATCs for picking me as one of their top 3 again last week. It's such fun to have a go.

JOURNAL JOURNEYS OCTOBER CHALLENGE

This month's challenge over at Journal Journeys is autumn/nature plus the use of stencils.
Although, unlike many, I actually don't like Autumn. I hate the thought of everything dying plus the cold, wet and wind. The dark doesn't help either. I much prefer spring when everything is happy. Having said that, I do adore the autumn colours which are some of my most favourite ever especially the deep reds.
Still not really into this journaling lark but I keep having a go, so here are my pages for the challenge this month.

I used a mixture of distress inks, colour wash and Terra to create the background and I used a flower stencil plus the remains of grungepaper once I had die cut leaves and a swirl as another set of stencils. The dots are the remnants of red rubber once I had mounted the alpha stamps it contained and I also used a plastic letter stencil to spray some perfect pearls through - which hasn't shown too well on the photo. The 'rutting' deer are from Tim Holtz reindeer flight die and their antlers are from his branch tree die. The words are one of Andy Skinner's stamps.
Although I said autumn means everything is closing down ready for the winter and dying, I think the amazing colours have brought this little scene to life.

2.75" x 2.75"

That's how big this canvas is:

It isn't going on the tag, that is there to show you how it turned out after mopping up the spare ink from the other day. The canvas is the first one I've used which is so small - and I've got a couple even smaller!


I painted it all over with trad. tan Studio paint then used dusty concord distress stain all over including the edges. How quick a job these stains make, just brilliant.

I then used a lolly stick to 'splodge' some Indian coloured Terra over parts to give some depth and interest. I dried it sparingly with a heat gun before rubbing purple and gold metallic rubbing wax over it. I then gave it all a good spray with heirloom gold perfect pearls. Had to let that dry in the sun as I wanted to keep the droplets.

The flower is one of the ones I made when we went away the other week. Matches perfectly. I mounted it onto the small cog which I cut from grungepaper and coloured with the dusty concord again. The leaves are cut from paper using an MS punch.

Just look at the lovely sparkle from the perfect pearls spray.


To finish off, I added some seed beads and a bit of purple stickles.

What a fun little project. I've decided to use it as a centre piece for a large card. I placed it onto a fancy piece of paper I had previously punched using an MS round the edge punch, and placed the whole thing into the middle of an 8"x8" card. It looked super. Having said that, the card was white and it needs a cream one. So that's what I shall do.
Thanks for looking.