A fast and furious Friday...

Hi everyone and welcome. It's positively blowing a hooley outside here, there's more water coming from the heavens than should be naturally possible and the sun hasn't made an appearance for days. So why then am I skipping around the house like an excited loon? All will become clear shortly...

Last week I was lucky enough to win from Wendy Vecchi the chance to join a fabulous Online Card Class - Stenciled (highly recommended) looking at lots of different techniques using, you guessed it, stencils. This card has a stencilled background, with Distress Paint used to resist Distress Stains.

I teamed it with an Archival Ink background (there is something of an addiction forming to this technique!)

As the layers continued to build this started to fall into a monochromatic colour scheme, and usually I'm not a fan of peach tones - so much so I convinced myself that this is a 'marmalade' colour scheme!!

Thank goodness Linda includes this dyed seam binding in her orders. What a match. The white die cuts worked as a real contrast, especially as the leaf bouquet was covered in white embossing power.

This is destined for entry to the Country View Challenges - Monochromatic (literally by the skin of my teeth :)

And now to explain why I'm doing a Bambi impression; Wendy Vecchi has the most fabulous giveaway on her blog right now celebrating her 1000th blog post. Seriously, you don't want to miss this one! Not only do you get the chance to enter, she also shares an amazing piece of artwork and her latest technique for using Archival Inks - painting.

Now as well as being an incredibly gifted artist I think this lady must be psychic. Why? Last night I had an interiors challenge programme on the telly in the background whilst getting some stuff done, and looked up to see the most magnificent watercolour style flowery fabric in liberal use all over a small living room. I thought out loud "that would look good on a card".

Little did I know Wendy would provide the method for recreating my version today!! So as the light faded (apologies for the photos with artificial lighting) and the dinner cooked, I grabbed my Archival Inks, stamps, Specialty paper and a waterbrush and got to work.

I must confess, Wendy recommended using embossing powder to cover the initial stamping but I didn't bother and it didn't shift when I coloured the flowers. And in case you are wondering I deliberately painted outside the lines for a more watercolour feel (like the fabric) and this has very little fuss for me. Is there anything you can't do with Archival Inks? I guess only Wendy knows the answer to that one too...

Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you'll join me again tomorrow when it's my turn to host a new challenge over at Our Creative Corner. For now, I have a date with an oven and some mincemeat (it is a truth universally known that growing sons are never filled!)

Wherever you are and whatever you're up to take care of yourselves, Jenny x