Getting my hand back in..

to crafting!! It has been a long while since I made altered art & I got so frustrated at throwing away ruined pieces that I decided to pack up all my craft stuff out of sight. It was the best thing for me to do because my thought processes began to work & I let the ideas flood. I couldn't see my craft tools so I couldn't get all hung up about nothing coming together as I didn't try to do anything. Then I got ill & its been 3 weeks since I even did my scrap pages.

Back in August last year we did a forum challenge to make a set of 3 things & I made 3 identical tags in 3 different colours. Today I set about making backgrounds for all 3 & they will be placed in clip frames that once housed some very old cross stitch pictures.

The light isn't that great on them because it is so sunny the camera doesn't like it, but tough because it is high time we saw some sun light again :0)
The top & bottom backgrounds are made from Rangers Alcohol Inks on watercolour paper. Top colours are Red Pepper, Raisin & Wild Plum. Bottom colours are Wild Plum, Stream, Lettuce. Blending solution was used on both. The middle background is torn pieces of scrap papers painted with a thin layer of gesso. Once dry I added Rangers Paint Dabbers in Lemonade, Willow, Peach Bellini & Pebble. To finish I added some Rangers distress ink in Peeled Paint & Spiced Marmalade around the edges. The stamps I used were Crafty Individuals, Heidi Swapp & some Stampers Guild ATC parts. I also used a script large background stamp by Hero Arts & some small prima flowers which I stamped with the script to add a continued theme to them. If you click on each picture you can see a larger version.