"The Shire"

Proud Grandma alert!! My young grandson, Andrew, aged 5, saw the picture I made with my tree stamp and Brusho paints (see here) and he wanted to make one.

First he punched a circle from a post-it note to make a mask for the moon. Next  he made the Brusho background by dipping a paintbrush into the powders and tapping it over the paper where he wanted the colour. Then he sprayed water over the picture until the colours had merged to his satisfaction. He did all of that with instruction but no physical help.

Having finished his background, he compared it with mine and decided that my picture was too plain, as it only has the tree and a bird. We looked through my stamps, and he found the Hobbit Door (Lavinia Stamps) and said that he wanted his to be a picture of The Shire (from Lord of the Rings. He's a big LOTR fan!) He chose some other stamps to go with the Hobbit Door (from Lavinia, Inkylicious & Hobby Art) and decided where they all should go. I helped him to hold the stamps as he was stamping them, just to make sure that he didn't smudge the images, because it would have been a shame to spoil his lovely background, but everything else was entirely his own work. He finished by colouring the door surround and the tree with coloured pencils.

We both decided that his artwork was far superior to mine!

Anything Goes at Stamping Sensations!

Summer certainly arrived last month at Stamping Sensations  and it was an absolute treat looking through all the beautiful entries full of gorgeous summer blooms! But now to this month, and we have an open theme for our August Challenge. It's

*****  ANYTHING GOES  *****

You can enter any project on a theme of your choice. The only stipulations is that as we are a stamping challenge it must contain some rubber (or polymer!) stamping done by hand. Any project which uses only digital "stamps" (which are of course not stamps but clipart) will unfortunately not be eligible for the prize. And it would be such a shame for you to miss out on the prize opportunity, because this month it's a stunner!

Our wonderful sponsors are Tonic Studios, and just look what they are offering the lucky winner! Absolutely gorgeous and newly released!

For my card I've gone with a Scottish theme. I took my inspiration from the thistles which have now replaced the spring bluebells on the bank across the road from my craftroom window, and also from this month's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

 

 

I'm still loving my Brusho paints, and have used them to make the background. I'm also trying to challenge myself to go outside my comfort zone a bit with my colour choices. Not too sure about this one but I *think* it works ok.....! I'd got in my head that the official Games tartan had orange in it, but when I checked later it's more pink! Oh well, never mind! The thistle silhouette (Chocolate Baroque) was stamped on to the background and surrounded with the Tonic Studios Celtic Circle die (from which I cut out the middle with a Spellbinders circle die to make it into a frame). The border at the side was made with the Tonic Studios Celtic Border Strip punch. The final touch was the tag with the sentiment (Chocolate Baroque) which I thought was quite appropriate to the ethos of the Commonwealth Games as the "friendly games".  I sponged around the edges of the tag with pigment ink, trying to match the Brusho colours as closely as I could.

 

I love open themes, as there are always some lovely surprises among the entries! I look forward to seeing yours!