Saturday 14 January 2017

Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge : January

A new year and a new challenge from the Craft Barn, this year the challenge is based on Sara Coleridge's poem, The Months.
January brings the snow
makes our feet and fingers glow


Click here for the link to the challenge page to join in.

This year I had a plan which is a massive improvement on 2016 when I had no plan for the alpha/dictionary challenge other than the dictionary itself. My original plan was to make postcards and send them to people each month but my plan is now modified. I am going to make a mini book with twelve pages in it, one for each month. Now, the postcard idea was still in my head so that is how I dealt with Mickie's twist challenge for January which is to include a bird in wellington boots. I had to draw the boots and the bird but I have made it into a postage stamp and stuck it on the page.

About three years ago I went to a workshop at the Craft Barn by Kay Carley, the first craft class I had ever attended! We did two lovely winter scenes using Lavinia stamps so I thought I would revisit that style for my January entry. Here it is:


Stamps used:
Lavinia Stamps : Spring Trees
Kanban : Stag and Doe
Woodware : Deck the halls
Paperartsy : ELB30 by Lin Brown
Clarity Stamps : postage stamp

The background is made using distress ink : Milled Lavender, Tumbled Glass, Stormy Sky and Chipped Sapphire. The trees are stamped with stormy sky and the fir branches are stamped with silver ink, I think you can see those silver branches if you look closely, they are subtle. 
The rhyme is from the poem on the Lin Brown set which I fortunately have so hope to be able to use it for all the pages in the challenge over the year but I think it might be a challenge to do that as the text is small.

I finished it off with some Stampendous Frantage shabby white embossing enamel to make the snow, I love that stuff, gorgeous little bits of gold in with the white.

OK, thats me done for this post, enjoy your weekends wherever you are and thank you for dropping by.



10 comments:

  1. Love your wellies and bird and great idea to make it into a postage stamp!

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  2. This is gorgeous! Love the welly's and the bird on the stamp, fabulous! I haven't made mine yet, I hope I manage it! xxx

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  3. Wow, that's a winter scene alright! Cute idea to use the stamp for getting the wellies & bird into the postcard too :-)

    Sally xx

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  4. Hi Julia, this is gorgeous and I didn't realise that there was a stamp set of the poem. I love the colours and the hand drawn stamp scene. My very first classes were also at the Craft Barn but when they were in Lingfield ( I think that was the place) in an actual barn building about 20 odd years ago! xx

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    1. Hi Jane, I wish I had done some classes in that old Barn. I remember it too, it was the first craft shop I discovered when I moved to the South East in 2002, happy days. x

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  5. Beautiful card Julia - love the postage stamp idea too. Thank you for joining the Craft Barn Month Challenge. xx

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  6. The first one of the year is always hard deciding on the format etc but I'm sure your book will look wonderful by the end of the year. Loving your wintry scene and icy trees. Elaine x

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  7. I love the delicate style of this - and those soft blues are so pretty. Sorry to be so late with the wishes, but I hope you have a wonderful 2017!
    Alison x

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  8. A very pretty postcard and turning the wellies into a stamp is inspired genius. xx

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  9. A fabulous winter scene. You've captured the stillness you get when it snows perfectly. The stamp is a very clever solution to the bird in a Wellington boot challenge.

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