Bloomin' Great! - new Forever 21 Blog challenge

Morning all,

And a very happy Sunday.  I don't say that very often on here, weekend posts are a bit few and far between from me.   Today is different though, it's the start of the new Indigo Blu Forever 21 Blog Challenge.  This months theme is ............. FLOWERS.  So, get out all those lovely Indigo Blu floral stamps that you all have in your stash, and away you go.

Before I show you my DT creation for this month,  CONGRATULATIONS to (drumroll)............

 Number 12  .........  KERRY

Well done Kerry, enjoy your prize. Thanks to everyone that took part, there were some fabulous creations once again.  I can't wait to see what you all come up with this month.

Here's mine ........

There's just one or two flowers on there!

I've painted one of the MDF folk hearts with Black Gee-So Good then covered one side with a good layer of Kroma Crackle, that's been mixed with a little pink acrylic paint.  I left this to dry for a good couple of days, then covered it with Slap-it-on Matte.

 I love how no two projects are going to be the same using the Crackle, you never know how it's going to turn out. This time I got quite large cracks towards the centre, see how the black shows through.

Once everything was dry, I brushed some silver metalic paint around the edges to give a bit of a contrast.

For my main floral image I chose the beautiful rose from the Clockworks stamp set, (love this). I added in a couple the smalller trailing rose from the same set along with a small flower from another fabulous Indigo Blu stamp set - Live Laugh Love.  It was difficult to choose which floral images to use as there's so many within the Indigo Blu range - Kay loves flowers.

I coloured a piece of white cardstock using pink shades of Pan Pastels, with a touch of pale blue in there and Kay's technique of doing lots of circles of colour all over ......

Doesn't look much at this stage, but bear with me.

I then stamped my flowers randomly all over the card, using a Black Versafine ink ......

Can you can see where I'm going with this now?  It's a quick and easy way to colour lots of images, and you get a bit of shading in there too.  I did the same thing with some green shades and stamped the leaves

Next job is to cut out all the flowers.  This takes a bit of time but I must admit I do like a bit of fussy cutting now and then.  Many moons ago, when I first started crafting (I can just about remember that far back!) decoupage was one of the first techniques I tried.  I do think most crafters give it a go at some point.

Once all your flowers and leaves are cut out, it's time for the fun part - flower arranging!  Now I'm not a florist, I'm more of a 'pop it down and see how it looks' kinda gal.  You just need to play around with the flowers without sticking them in place, until you're happy with the arrangement.  Once everything is on place, carefully glue each individual flower - I used a hot glue gun for this.  You can still get a bit of dimension without having to wait too long for the glue to dry.
You can see I've also added layers to some of the flowers for a bit more depth ........

And I've covered the leaves with a bit of Glossy Accents to give them a shine.

The sentiment is from the Bloomin' Great stamp set, stamped and cut out using one of the circle Nestabilities dies.  It's been layered onto a circle covered with the Mega Flakes to highlight it, layered again onto black and then it's been attached to a cocktail stick, painted with Black Gee-So Good and then glued into place with hot glue.

A pretty ribobn bow, and some white rafia string to hang it with, add the finishing touches.

Hope you like it, and that it's inspired you to enter.  There's another fabulous prize up for grabs so come on, get your Indigo Blu stamps out and create something with a FLORAL theme.

Thanks for popping by today.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend.  It's been lovely here so far, I hope it's nice where you are.

I'm off to spend the day tidying the old craft room.  You can't actually put anything else in there at the moment, every surface is covered in STUFF!! Even my chair!!!  I need to get in there and put everything away, then I can start with a clean workspace tomorrow - well, I can hope can't I.

Have a lovely day.  Cheerio for now, and Good luck in the challenge.

Linda

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Forever 21!

Happy Thursday everyone,

What an exciting day it is today.  The wait is over, all the hinting is done and the BIG day is finally here.  Yes, the Indigo Blu 'Forever 21' Challenge Blog  has gone live this morning.  What do you think?  The Forever 21 bit is because we've all decided that's what we'd like to be! so the 21st was a good day to launch.

It's going to be a monthly challenge, with a different theme each month.  Don't worry, we'll keep them relatively easy (to begin with  -  mwahhaha!!!!!!).  There's going to be fab prizes for the winner and of course a Winners Badge for you to proudly display on your Blogs.
There'll be a new challenge starting on the 21st of each month, so there's plenty of time for you to design something fabulous.  All we ask is that you follow the challenge rules - there's not many (see the Blog post for details)  Your entry can be anything at all,  so you can make cards, mini books, scrapbook pages, tags, altered art, you choose, just stick to the monthly theme.  There's a Linky thingy at the end of the post for you to enter your projects.  

Exciting eh!  Well, here goes our first challenge ......

This month's theme is...........    

BLUE

(we couldn't start with anything else really ..... could we!)

We want to see gorgeous Blue projects - now that can be anything at all.  I've started off with a card .......

Challenge #1   Blue

This is definitely BLUE.  It's a nice big 8x8 card and I've used the Live Laugh Love stamp set.

I made my background using Pan Pastels, blended onto a piece of the Indigo Blu Perfect Stamping Card.  I then stamped the flower randomly all over using Versamark ink and sponged over the top again with Pan Pastels.  The tacky ink picks up the colour and Voila! you get your stamped image.  Next, the tricky part (if you can call it that).  I cut myself a few masks for the flower.  The easiest, and quickest way to do this is to stamp the image onto a pad of  Post It notes, making sure that part of it is actually over where the sticky bit is.  Take off however many sheets you need - I did 6,  keep them all stuck together.  Carefully cut around your stamped image, and there you go, all your masks done at once. 

Carefully mask off the flowers, you don't need to do all of them at once, just cover the ones in the area where your background stamp is going to go.  I used the Crackleglaze background and stamped using a blue Versafine ink.  Repeat over the whole of the card, moving your masks as you go.

Using one of the Rotating erasers (available on the website) I then 'coloured' my flowers.  Well, actually I supposed I took the colour away, but you know what I mean.  Made them white!  Added a piece of navy satin ribbon across the bottom,  and there you have it, background done.

I stamped more of the flowers, some leaves and the cute little bird, in Deep Lagoon Versafine ink, then cut them all out.  The little chap's been coloured using Pan Pastels again, then I've taken the colour away, just touches here and there on his wings, just to highlight.

Using my cut out flowers and leaves, along with a few paper flowers, some pearls and a beautiful Memory Box Flourish, I made a pretty arrangement in the bottom corner of my card and added a navy satin ribbon bow.

The sentiment has been stamped and cut out using one of the Nestabilites dies, inked around the edge with the die still in place with a touch of Distress ink, then layered onto some navy cardstock.

I added the little bird to finish it all off.   I don't use a lot of blue in my card making, but I like how this has all come together.

Check out the Challenge Blog to see more great 'Blue' designs from the rest of the DT.

Have we inspired you to enter?  I've said there's a monthly prize, well with it being the first challenge it's a rather special prize..........  Indigo Blu goodies to the value of a whopping £125!!!!  Yes, the lucky winner of the first Forever 21 Challenge will recieve a Flitter Glu Starter Kit, a tube of the brand new Kroma Crackle, and all 8 brand new stamp plates launching on Create and Craft on Sunday - yes, can you believe all 8 of them!!  Wow! what a prize.  But,as the saying goes .......  you have to be in it to win it.  So get crafting!!

The winner will be chosen by Mr random.org on the 20th March and will be showcased on the next Challenge Blog post.  Good luck!

Thanks for popping by.  Have a great 'Blue' day.

Cheerio for now

Linda

x