Spring is in the Air ~ Stamps and Stencils ~ New Challenge

Well the months are starting to race away and I can barely believe it's March already! Still, at least it's now officially 'Spring'. The beginning of the month also heralds a new challenge over at Stamps and Stencils. Our fabulous host this month is Rachel and  her challenge title is 'Spring is in the Air'. This is what Rachel has to say.....

'I want you to think about what the coming of Spring means to you? Is it a colour burst, or maybe flowers? Whatever it is I would like you to show us in a mixed media piece, including stamping or stenciling or both !'

For me, Spring is the time of year when everything starts to come alive... including me! I'm definitely not a Winter person. So my project is reflection on the vibrancy of Spring. I started off by making four backgrounds.....

I sprayed four pieces of card with various shades of Dylusions Sprays. I then used a variety of background stamps and stencils in deeper shades of Distress Inks. Once everything was dry, I die cut the four pieces using a Sizzix Accordion die. It was nice to give this an airing as I haven't used it for a while.

I then used a selection of stamps from Indigo Blu and Artemio, to stamp the images onto each panel, using Black Archival ink. The die cuts were a little messy on the back where they had been splashed and spattered with ink, so I decided to cut four more in black card and adhere them together. This also made each piece a little more substantial. I then joined each of the pieces together to make the accordion card.

Whilst I love getting down and dirty with pastes and other tactile media, it's really nice to get back to some basic stamping and inking with a project like as this. So now it's over to you ! If you'd like to join in with our Spring is in the Air challenge, then hop over to the Stamps and Stencils blog where you'll find the challenge details as well as some fantastic inspiration by the rest of the design team. You have a whole month to get involved and we would love to see your projects!  So,until next time, happy crafting ! x