Time for a redo

Welcome one and all to this neck of the woods. You meet me mid-squeal (a loud and extended one at that) as I have just found out that lucky ole me won Trace's one-year blog birthday candy draw!!!!! She has an outstanding crafting talent and her blog, inkypinkycraft, is a joy to follow. I promise to do my best to do justice to the Indigo Blu stamp sets (that have been on my wishlist for some time).

Now my turn to share. Reading Anita Houston's blog (as I know many of you do) a few nights ago she introduced the latest challenge at Our Creative Corner (which has a who's who lineup of designers). Their challenge is to 'makeover' a project you have been unhappy with.

Some may remember the project on the left - one created for the yellow/purple Make My Monday challenge and then discounted due to the lack of yellow. I mentioned at the time that it was inspired by the artwork of John Atkinson Grimshaw. He used some beautiful, soft, blended, muted colours to achieve an ethereal look on so many of his paintings, and this didn't come across in that first attempt. So it was time for a redo - hence the latest effort on right (created whilst watching Hels on the telebox).

In fairness there were no colour constraints this time, so I started with a layer of Memento London Fog on Ranger specialty paper. Then I blended layers of blue, purple and sage and more Fog (that's the great thing about this paper - it doesn't muddy no matter how much ink you throw at it). Next, add water with a thin brush and up comes some of the ink so that Wild Honey and a white gel pen can be used to create the moon and lit windows. I liked the moon last time and loved it this time.

A few elements got picked out with more of the same ink and this time a sentiment was added.

Although I liked the idea of vines/branches trailing across the original image, I decided to use the same dies in a more muted way with Coredinations cardstock, London Fog ink and some punched and blackened flowers. Having mounted the tag on More cardstock I used a SB Banner die to trim the bottom. A piece of died seam binding and a small UTEE embossed/distressed metal tassel was used to trim the top.

Overall I'm so much happier with this version and will be entering it for the Our Creative Corner challenge. I will also put it into the Fashionable Stamping Challenge - Let's Get Messy and Inky (you wanna see my fingers!) Right, way past my bedtime but it was important to get round to visit everyone's blogs as there have been some stunning creations on display over the past few days. Hugs to you all and thanks for dropping by, Buttons x