An Inky weekend

 I received through the post this week some new stamps from Lavinia stamps - they are some of those gorgeous fairy stamps I have seen about and lusted after for some time. Well I had a little money left over from Christmas (thanks Mum) so in the shopping basket they went. Subsequently I have had a lovely inky play this weekend and made some things for a few challenges.

I really just made this up as I went along. Using Distress Inks I started with my brayer, continued with my Distress inks applicator and finished off with a  little cosmetic sponge! The stamps are a combination of Lavinia's stamps and  Hampton Art. I gave the whole piece a spritz with perfect pearls mist in perfect pearl  - (you can see how it's affected the DI ink on this pic but not the lovely shimmer it gives) and used a white pen to add some highlights. Oh and of course there is stickles on there too - black on the mushrooms and crystal on the fairy wings! So now for the challenges- The Artistic Stamper - 'Things with Wings', ABC  - 'M' is for Magical,

Also through the post yesterday I received this months Craft Stamper magazine and my next project involved pretty much casing one of the cards from within it's creatively brilliant pages! Using the Blended paper technique, (including a spritz of DI re-inker in Milled Lavender) I made this card -

 I've used my favourate colour (purple) to fit with this weeks Play Date Cafe Challenge which is a colour splash challenge. I'm also going to enter both cards over at Lets ink it Up - 'Anything Goes' and Stamptacular - 'whateva'.

I made this as an entry for Simon says Stamp and Show - childhood memories but missed the entry time by a few mins - I struggle with working out the time difference!. I've used script and music images for the background technique which represent my two biggest loves (other than crafting) discovered in my childhood and carried on through my life (hence the journey sentiment) Books and Music. I always had my nose in a book as a child and spent many happy hours reading - had even been known to walk to school with a book in front of my face! I also learnt to play the piano as a child - I can remember teaching myself a few notes while playing at a friends house who had a piano and then crazing my parents to learn.   So there you have it - bit beside the point as I missed the challenge I know but I'd put the work in so shared it anyway!

Talking of sharing I received a blog award earlier this week from Lynn (Spyder) who lives here. It's lovely to know people are interested in my blog especially when I've been pushed for time lately and haven't done as much visiting as I'd like. In accepting this Award, I should tell you 8 things about myself and then pass it on to 8 others. Well this post is already very long so I won't bore you further. I also realise that some people don't like doing the write about yourself and  pass it on thing, and there are so many fantastic blogs out there I'll just say thanks so much to Spyder and anyone who would like to take the award and pass on to others please do so!

Hope you've had a happy creative weekend - thanks for stopping by...Esther xx