Dirty Weekend

My creativity seems to be full on at the moment. Sock making has taken a back seat for the moment in favour of a crochet scarf/ wrap. I also have two magazine articles in progress - one a mini book, the other cards. The book is almost finished - just as well as my deadline is 8th April - it just needs a few tweaks and faffy things. The cards are there in my head and partly on paper but still very much in the playing stage - the brief is men's cards, but I need to use some new to the market glitters. Glitter and men's cards aren't things you'd naturally throw together, but I like a challenge - or should that be I'm challenging?

As if that wasn't enough, I'm still working on the swatch book I mentioned. The pages will be added to over time, but I have so many pages already, that I'm in dire need of some sort of binding to contain them. Enter inspiration in the form of cardboard packaging - again, inspiration and cardboard packaging not normally closely bound but there it is. So I started ripping and peeling layers of cardboard and got more than a little carried away. After peeling the top layer off to expose the corrugation, I added manuscript paper, scuffed the edges and applied picket fence distress stain and inks. For texture I pasted rock candy distress crackle through a mesh stencil, inked into the cracks, then went in with some of my homemade texture paste and various shimmer mists.

I wanted to incorporate one of the art tiles I made the other week, to that I added die cut flowers inked with mists and a gilded flourish. I was all ready to pull it all together and whilst mulling over my title, I spied some crayons I'd bought for melting - the result was a 'rough' seal stamped with 'create' which led me on to melting ultra thick on a craft sheet over an iron and then stamping. My first attempt is ok, but then I decided to try adding coloured embossing powder. I love the way this one turned out.

The finished cover. It's evolved into much more than I initially intended, but I'm so pleased that I let myself go with the flow and experiment.

Now I really need some industrial strength cleaner to remove all the craftermath from my hands!