Happy Monday!

Hi guys,
Hope you all had a good weekend and managed to enjoy some of the glorious weather that was around.
Saturday was gorgeous here. It did get off to a grey start but once the sun came out it was beautiful.  Just as well, because we were at a BBQ/Lobster Party in the afternoon.  Stephen was put in charge of cooking the lobsters, and I somehow managed to end up as Sous-Chef.
Lots of beer and wine, two small gas stoves, two rather large pans of boiling water, one mean looking meat cleaver and 50 (yes, I said 50!!) LIVE lobsters.  What could possibly go wrong!

Well actually, nothing! Surprisingly.
We made a great team.   (How is it that men like to cook outdoors, but when it comes to cooking in the kitchen that's our job!?)   We managed to cook, serve, and everyone managed to eat, 37 of the lobsters ....

 - as well as 2 large legs of lamb plus all the usual salads, bread, desserts etc., that you get at a BBQ - nom! nom! nom!  The remaining lobsters were cooked yesterday (Sunday) and then Steve and Sarah, who hosted the BBQ, did a take-out service for those that wanted it.  So it was lobster and salmon again for tea.  I don't want to see another plate of seafood until at least November!!!

Even though we had a busy weekend I did manage to spend some time in the old craft room.  I've been playing with paint and inks, masks and Gesso, Flitter Glu and Flakes, Fran-tage embossing powders - I've had a ball!  And what's really good is, the end result is for ME!!

I've been making so many projects recently, for other people, using the dress form, some of which I really didn't want to give away (is that naughty of me?), that I thought it was time I made one for myself.  So here it is .....

..... it's an 8x8 canvas, and there's just about everything on there.  It looks like I'm still in my pink phase too. 
I didn't really have a plan when I started out, except that I knew I was going to use a dress form somewhere on there, and there had to be lots of texture too (Ooh!  Now why is that I wonder?  Maybe I'll say more later ...... !?!??)
Most of the inspiration for this came from Hels Sheridan.  I love reading her blog, there's so much inspriation and loads of ideas on there, she's such a talented lady.   If you're not already a fan pop over and take at look - you don't know what you're missing.

Right how did this come together .......
I started by randomly painting the canvas with pastel shades of acrylic paint.  I just kept adding paint until I was happy with the look.   Once it was all dry I used one of the Prima masks and inked through it with Worn Lipstick Distress ink.  I then used another mask, this time with Gesso to add a bit of texture. (Love this stuff - note to self .... Need a new BIGGER pot!) 
The new Fran-tage Embossing Enamels have been sat on my window ledge for goodness knows how long so I thought it was time I gave them a go.  I used them with a stamp and Versamark ink, just like you would any other embossing powder, and, you can just about see, I also added some to the edges of the piece of corrugated  card, just by sprinkling it on where I wanted it and then heated from underneath so as not to blow it all away.  I used the Shabby Pink, but there's lots of fab colours available.

There's a little bit of gilded crackle (an Indigo Blu stamp), and I've edged the whole of the canvas with Flitter Glu and flakes (Manchester Tart),  again to add a different texture.
The dress form is a Tim Holtz rubber stamp, stamped directly onto the canvas and then just the top half stamped again onto a piece of card, this time in Worn Lipstick DI.  It's then been cut out and attached over the top.
She's been dressed with a little more of the Fran-tage, ribbon flowers and some tulle.  Her wings are an Indigo Blu butterfly stamp done in two layers, one card, one acetate.

I stamped one of my favourite Tim Holtz sayings, cut it out and layered it using the Spellbinders Labels 18 dies.  You can see the black layer has also been put through an embossing folder and then sanded back, more texture.
Also the large paper flower in the corner has been Fran-taged (I'm hooked on this stuff now).  It was stamped, completely covered in Versamark then 2 layers of the Embossing Enamel.  A smaller rose has been added to the centre.

To finish it all off, I used some more paper flowers (Prima), vintage seam binding, some decorative pins, a couple of  metal charms, a few Chit Chat words, and finally, I covered the sides with strips of inked and distressed scrapbooking papers.  I said there was a bit of everything on here.  And the best bit is, it can stay on my craft room wall, for now. Yeah!!

Phew, that was a long one for first post of the week.  I'm hoping to be back later with another one.
I'm off across to the UK tomorrow evening so I need to get a few things done before then.

Thanks for popping by today.
I notice that I've got a couple of new followers again over the weekend.  Hello and Welcome to Shelagh and Brenda.  It's lovely to have you along and I really appreciate you taking the time to read my posts.  It's so nice to know there's someone out there.

Enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll see you all again later.

Bye for now

Linda

x