F is for...Fabulous Florals!

Ladies and Gentlemen, please allow me to make some super exciting announcements ;). 

First of all, my BlogStar term at Stampendous is now officially over. However - and this is the super exciting part - my Stampendous adventure will continue! I am now the Official Stampendous Foreign Correspondent for the UK! How cool is that??? So please beware my friends as that means I will be inspiring (and tempting) you with the fabulous Stampendoulicious stuff for much much much longer! :)

So... now the super important part! This month the whole Team is playing with flowers (especially all the Jumbo beauties) and we challenge you to join us! Click here to hop over to the challenge linky tool and to see all the beautiful inspiration my DT Sisters have in store for you.

Now onto my project. Some of you might know that I've recently had a real pleasure and joy to meet Fran Seiford - Mrs Stampendous herself! You can read about it here. I am really grateful to be given a chance to become part of the Stampendous team so I prepared a small 'thank you' gift for Fran...:)

I'd spent ages thinking of a suitable 'thank you' gift and it was a real 'light bulb' moment for me! I love altering papier mache letters (click here to see my previous post with a Steampunk 'L') and I thought this was to best way to give this gift a truly personal feel :).

I started the project by painting the letter with matt emulsion and Ranger Picket Fence crackle paint. Then I fussy cut a handful of paper napkin butterflies and adhered them to the letter with Decopatch glue. Next I stamped the swirls from the cling Jumbo Hollyhock set onto white tissue paper with clear embossing ink and heat embossed them with with Stampendous Aqua embossing powder. sing Decopatch glue I fixed fragments of the tissue onto the letter.

Next I stamped the Hollyhock flower twice onto vellum and heat embossed it with Aqua and White embossing powders. Then I coloured the flowers with Inktense pencils, cut out and layered them onto the letter using foam pads. For the centres of the flowers I used Royal Blue Glass Glitter and sequins. Then using the encrusted jewel technique I Fran-taged the edges of the letter with Aged White Embossing Enamel, Aqua EP and Powder Blue colour fragments.

I needed to find a solution to allow my letter to stand so I decorated a couple of Configuration boxes with paper napkins, matt emulsion paints, Aged White EE, sequins and Royal Blue Glass Glitter (oh boy, I just love this stuff!). 

Top Tip - to Fran-tage the inside of the box use a sponge, Emboss 'lip gloss' or simply your fingers to apply embossing ink, pour the powders in, cover the box and shake it, tip the excess powders out, melt with heat gun, add more powders, heat with heat gun (repeat if necessary), add sparklies and done!

To embellish I added some scrapbook tile alphas, some cheese cloth and a spray of flowers. And to make a final touch I added Fran's photo in a cute little frame from Melissa Frances.

I hope I've inspired you to create some fabulous flower makes and join our challenge this month. Don't forget, if you use one of the Stampendous flower stamps your name will be put in a hat twice for the prize draw (nb. winner needs to have a US mailing address).

Big hugs



Challenges for this project:
The Stamp Man October - Butterflies, Bees and Birds
The Crafty Bloggers Network Challenge #4 - Anything goes
Make It Monday #110 - Anything goes
Top Tip Tuesday #87 - Things with wings
Anything But a Card Challenge - Shiny, Sparkly, Blingy
Vintage Stamping Challenges #1 - Anything goes
Pan Pastel UK #39 - Altered item
Pile It On #41 - Vintage or Shabby Chic
Simon Says Stamp challenge - Glimmer and Sparkle