Colours of Autumn? (posted by Lesley)

Hi Everyone,

Well, to say I got such an early start on this project and had it 95% finished before we even announced Jo's choice, it's taken me an age to put the finishing touches to it because other things got in the way.  I have to say though that for me personally this has been a most enjoyable project to do.  I thoroughly enjoyed every minute I put into it so thankyou Jo for choosing it and Linda Elbourne for giving us the inspiration in the July issue of Craft Stamper Magazine.  I love Linda's style both in her artwork and also her 'turn of phrase' on her wonderful blog.  She always makes me chuckle!

                                      

Anyway, onto the details of my offering.  I only had an A4 sized canvas board so decided to make my own square one by using a sheet of double sided adhesive applied to canvas cut from a roll and then mounted onto greyboard.  I was really pleased at how neat I managed to get this.  I then used acrylic paints to mix my own shade of green and covered the whole canvas with it.  When it was dry I used Walnut Stain DI to darken round the edges of the canvas.  I coloured my Grungepaper squares with Peeled Paint DI and then embossed them with a script Cuttlebug folder before darkening the edges with Walnut Stain again.
 

I didn't have a tag big enough so I had to use two which I inked with a mixture of Distress Inks but as it's over a month since I did them I can't remember what colours I used now (and, of course, I didn't write them down, Doh!).  I did use a Tim Holtz mask though and one of his quote stamps.  I also used Clarity stamps for the birds, a couple of Elusive Images stamps for the extra words and a pretty little butterfly stamp that my lovely and very talented blogging buddy Suzz sent to me a while ago.  I also used two very pretty butterflies that I showed on my sneak peek that Suzz sent me so thankyou Suzz, they were perfect for this project.  I won't list everything I used on here except to say there are Wendy Vecchi stamps, Tim Holtz.Sizzix dies and quite a lot of TH Ideology bits and pieces.  A few bits I found in my 'junk' box were the little leather flowers which I recued from a favourite pair of sandals after my dog decided to chew them to bits and the UTEE oval  (with the eye) which I made in a workshop ages ago.

I didn't have any of the Memory Capsules so to get a little 'movement' into my project I used a teeny bottle and put some of the beads I've used on other areas plus some bits of watch works.  I then inked up a piece of Grungepaper and rolled it into a stopper for the bottle.

As I have the same initial as Linda, I didn't want to use the letter L in the typewriter key thing so I decided to use three with the initials of our blog in them.

There is one bit I did wrong because I was so eager to get on with it I missed reading the part about stippling the Gold dabber onto the chipboard pieces and then sprinkling with gold EP.  I am annoyed with myself about that because I think it's a lovely textured effect on Linda's project but to give mine a little more interest than the plain flat gold, I added some beads and sticky backed gems.

I hope you like my attempt at this lovely project as it was a real pleasure to create.  Unfortunately, you may have to wait a little while for the others to post their projects as many things are conspiring to delay 'production', Lol.  I know Judith just managed to finish hers but didn't have time to take the pics and post before other things have taken precedence again for a week or so.  Elaine has been really busy with extra household jobs and Jo has been gadding about Europe twice (jammy girl) so far this month and she's away again next week.

As always we look forward to and really appreciate any comments you have time to leave and if there's anything on my project that you would like to have more details on please ask.  Have a lovely week all!

Hugs
Lesley  Xx