Welcome to today's Guest Designer, Claire !

Hello and welcome ! Today we are welcoming Claire of Claire's Crafty Creations as our Guest Designer, Claire was the winner of the Happy Holidays challenge and therefore was invited to join us for a day ! So let's move on to hear from Claire and see her beautiful project.

My name is Claire and I live in the UK with my 2 dogs and my parrot. I work for a mental health charity and when I'm not at work I can usually be found getting inky in my craft room. Like a lot of crafters I began with cross stitch many years ago and over the years have tried lots of different crafts. Its so exciting to see a blank canvas or piece of card transformed into a little work of art. I enjoy trying new techniques and I have a real love of colour and texture. I don't think I have a particular craftiing style,although I do enjoy creating projects with a vintage look.  I love stamping and stencilling so its a real treat to join the team at Stamps and Stencils as a Guest for this months challenge.

 

I used an 8x8 canvas but for a change I decided to use it as diamond shape.

I began by blending acrylic paint to create my background splashing with a little water for some texture

I stamped my images (from Chocolate Baroque) onto tissue paper and tore them out before applying them to the canvas with matte gel medium.

Next I coloured the images with Graph'It markers and stencilled some butterflies using a Splodgeaway Stencil and texture paste.

 

 To colour the butterflies, I replaced the stencil and applied versamark ink over the butterflies before adding some colour with PanPastels.

At this point I decided it was looking a wee bit too summery for the brief of Autumn Colours so I set too with some Vintage Photo Distress ink to tone things down.  I watercoloured some shadows around the butterflies, distressed the edges and splashed some watered down ink here and there.

As a finishing touch I stamped the Butterfly Dress image onto acetate and embossed with Gold, Copper and Brass WOW embossing powder, cut the butterflies out and glued them to the image. I folded the acatate wing and just glued the bodies for some extra dimension. The butterflies were finished off with some pearls, again coloured in Autumn shades using Graph'It Markers.

 

 

To edge the canvas I applied a coat of black gesso and once that was dry I rubbed a Versamark inkpad lighly over the edges before applying PanPastels.

 

 I'm sure you'll all agree that Claire's project is gorgeous ! If you would like to join us as Guest Designer all you need to do is join in with the current challenge Up, Up and Away with a twist !