Happy Holidays !

I've spent a couple of afternoons playing with my Gelli plate and now have a whole bunch of prints just waiting for stamping, stenciling or perhaps embossing. Whilst it's good fun playing with this relatively new craft medium, it's been great to get back to a bit of 'old school' stamping with this summer themed tag. I've used a set of Graphic 45 stamps for the beach girl, borders and postage marks. The sun rays are from my most well used set of stamps, Tim Holtz's Bitty Grunge set. Here's a close up... 

I've used Scattered Straw and Spiced Marmalade Distress ink which I then heat embossed. The beach belle has been stamped in black Archival and also heat embossed.This enabled me to easily 'paint' her and the sun rays, with Distress Markers and a water brush. I stamped her first and then used a mask before stamping the sun rays. The borders have been stamped in black Archival ink and also heat embossed. I love the  crisp geometric pattern of these.

 I made the little stamp with a Woodware punch. the postage marks are from the Graphic 45 Tropical stamp set. I'm going to enter this into the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge, where the theme is 'Air Mail' and also The Artistic Stamper Creative Team Challenge where the theme is Postcards, Holidays and Travel. I've also discovered  The Drunken Stampers Blog through Linda over at Studio L3, They also have a Beach / Holiday themed challenge so with a name like that I can't resist joining in! Hope you've all had a lovely crafty weekend, let's hope the sun keeps shining x