Florence Turnour's Blog

OK, so it is already Day 5, but I had so much work to do. I'm taking a break from it to try some more of the techniques in Tim Holtz's Creative Chemistry 102 class. Day 2 focussed on stencils, one of my favorite tools. I like cutting my own stencils from transparency paper, which is slick and easy to sponge through, and thin enough to stamp through. This time, however, I used a stencil from Crafter'sWorkshop. I made two samplers, and pasted them to the two sides of this middle sized butterfly. I was inspired by Tim's choice of blue and brown, but decided that I was in a green mood, and chose Distress Ink in Evergreen Bough and Vintage Photo instead. I like the speckled appearance made from little specks of clear embossing powder. Here's a close-up. Here's the start of my butterfly mobile project , including a butterfly made using Distress Paint as a resist, and here is a butterfly made using Distress Paint to create a faux patina look. Maybe there...

I bought this set of Mirkwood Designs Bicycle Stamps from Victorine Originals . I seem to be attracted to bicycles; I think it is because of the detailed negative space between the spokes, and the appeal of simple and effective mechanical devices. The Fashionable Stamping Challenge this week is "Let's Get Inky." I've always loved sponging, so I decided to use the embossed resist technique. Bicycle Built for Two Stamps by Mirkwood Designs In addition to the sponged blue background, I inked the edges with a tan Distress Ink, and the scalloped border with gold. I had two Spellbinders revelations in this project. I used one of my Spellbinders border dies as an embossing template and embossed the dots around the edge by hand, using the embossing tool that looks like a stick with a knob on the end. I love the dotted border. For the tag, I used the third largest Romantic Rectangles  die. It was too wide for my sentiment, though, so I made a narrower tag by cutti...

This one is inspired by the Just Us Girls Challenge blog. Here's the how-to sponge video from Gina K. I watched her stitching on cardstock video as well, before having a go. I love to sponge, so when I saw the Just Us Girls sponging challenge, I hauled out the stencils that I made a few years ago (here is my post " Butterfly Dresses " from 2010). I drew the dress image in Adobe Illustrator, and then cut it out of an overhead transparency (acetate) on my Sihlouette cutter . Then I sponged through the stencil, and stamped over it with a butterfly background stamp (it's unlabeled, so I don't know where it came from). I like the idea of stitching on card stock, so I gave that a try here. I now am certain that I need more colors of thread.  Every time I try a new technique, I end up needing more equipment! I have a confession to make: when I uploaded this card to the challenge, it had fewer elements. I had thought I was done, but changed my mind, and add...