A wash with colour

It's the weekend again, oh how I love them, I wish I had a Saturday Groundhog Day and wake up on a Saturday morning every morning, until I had crafted myself out. I reckon I could keep going for a few years!

Below is letter No. 4 of  the 12 I intend on decorating.  My intention with the design of this letter shifted from my initial ideas. I wanted just a monochromatic letter. I painted it white, and stamped the words all over it, distressed it a little with Scattered Straw Distress ink, blackened the edges, and made the little book, I was going to leave it like this. I thought it looked simple and I liked it. But then I went to sleep and woke up the next day, and I thought it needed colour. So I went for a splash rather than changing the colour of the letter completely.

Do I want to stick with trying to decorate the letter with a theme associated with the letter itself  i.e. 'H' is for Happy, 'E' is for elegant. Some ideas I want to do don't even begin with that letter, I'll just have to go with the flow and see what happens.

The book was a little bit of fun to make. I stamped up an A4 sheet on both sides with a Debbie Moore written word stamp, it looks quite Medieval don't you think? Then I cut the sheet up into rectangles. When I thought I had enough pages, I stapled them twice in the middle to secure them, then glued them to some brown card. I distressed the edges, and stuck a small square of the text on the front for effect. The butterfly is a Tim Holtz stamp and the pen nib is also from T!m's idea-ology range.

The next day, I decided that was it, the letter had to have colour on it, colour made me happy and I would always want to put some on.  So without thinking I put a paintbrush in some thick white acrylic paint and painted a lightning streak across the letter, much to my son's horror. I then got my Adirondack alcohol inks out and dropped ink on my lumpy acrylic paint.  

I could see it taking shape, it was just what I wanted. And then......Happiness is a splash of colour!.....The sentiment was born.....I knew it felt right now, it was the colour it needed all along.  I did the words by painting a blank piece of white card with a thin layer of white acrylic paint, then dropping the same coloured  inks I used on the letter on the piece of card, then dried it with the heat gun. I then got my Hampton Art alphabet set and stamped my words out. I cut each word out and matted them onto black card.

I had been inspired by Dina Stamps Ponderings blog with the white acrylic circles and wanted to put a few circles on my letter too. I find myself going back to Dina's blog nearly everyday, I just love her artful creativity, really inspiring. http://dinastamps.typepad.com/ponderings/

The next letter is 'O'. I have a couple of ideas, but no doubt they will change. I'm at a wedding all day tomorrow, so won't get chance to craft or upload. :-(

Happy colourful crafting folks!

Michelle x

Here's a blog with a great monochromatic challenge, my creation falls out of their rules, seeing as I chucked a load of colour at it. But just wanted to share their lovely creations on here because they are all so inspiring. http://fashionablestampingchallenges.cottagecrafts.ie/?p=2541#comment-274