Getting even more messy!

The Mystery Kit at the Eastbourne Crop was a challenge in getting outside the box - with two sheets of white Bazzill, one of kraft, a square of red and white checked fabric and another of hessian, the brief was to make a layout without any patterned paper or premade embellishments - or anything else added in fact - but with free rein to use inks, stamps, paints, mists, masks, stencils, wire, embossing, diecutters etc.

It took me a while to get going but this was my finished result:

Please forgive the photo - it's so grey today I can't get a good one.

For anyone who is interested in the technique, this is what I did:

• In the spirit of the current trend I started by flicking mist across my Bazzill!

• I painted some bright rough flower shapes using acrylic paints and mists, used texture paste through a couple of stencils, one cut by a die cutter.  I also hand cut similar shapes out of the White Bazzill so I had a negative shape. I fixed some of the painted paper behind the cut shapes, and cut out some other flowers to use in my layers.

• One of the most fun bits was making my own stamp - you take this special foam block thing and use a heat gun to warm it.  Then you press it into anything textured you want - in this case it was decorative glass bits in a vase and then you can use it as a stamp - I have to do this again soon.
• The base layer was the texture paint and a wire mesh mask.
• Then came the hand cutting, and inking through a mask to make the blue flower shape.
• I decided to sew my title and used thread from the checked fabric to stitch the letters, which I then cut out in outline.

• I coated some threads from the hessian with gesso and arranged them in loops on the base.
• I had a ball playing with various embossing folders and the Big Shot to get some textured papers.  I coloured the kraft ones with paint, and used white embossing powder on some of the circles.  I stamped and embossed a border for my photo mat using a Hero Arts border stamp.  

• I then layered up my flowers, circles and embossed bits and pieces and stuck them down. The flower centres are made from texture paint, stamped, metal circles and curled up hessian threads, tinted with bronzing powder.  I also added dimensional paint to some of the flowers and embossed paper.
• Finally I added a flower (in two halves), cut from metal sheet and fringed, then tinted with alcohol ink.
• I also added some punched tiny hearts from the scraps of the painted Bazzill, and cut some more from white scraps, and added some butterflies in white. 

I absolutely loved playing with all this and getting messy - I'd even bought gloves so I could play without getting covered - and they are still in their packet.   I had no clear idea where I was going when I started, beyond using those photos and that font for the title, and I worked on it on at least 5 separate occasions as it evolved.  Some things I imagined didn't work out, others needed modifying, but all in all I have a layout that I am really pleased with, and that my DD loves too, which is great as it is for her album.

I'm definitely getting messy again - it took a change of mindset, but opened up a whole new world of possibilities - not to mention a new list of things I 'need'!!