I am a Winner .......... yayyyyyyy

A very good morning/afternoon/evening to you all. Are you all sitting comfortably? This is going to be a loooooooong post.

If you have been following any of my latest projects on this blog, you will have seen that a number of projects were aimed at the Illusionary Artists challenge being staged, The task was, using either France Papillon's or Andy Skinner's stamps in the Chocolate Baroque Illusionary Artists range, create a project (or seven). Link the project into one of several spots and be judged by both artists. The prize was a feature blog post on the respective artists blogs. No mean prize considering the bragging rights this affords as both are amazing professional artists (as well as being lovely people) and I have had the greatest pleasure in meeting them both and taking more than one class in the Ministry of Mixology weekends.

Well I am ecstatic, to say the least. France loved my little mini book featuring Auntie Margo and co and it was this project that secured this fabulous prize for me.

Please click the link above to read more about this project.

So what new projects to feature in this post on France's blog? 

I made a few, trying to feature not only the stamps but also the fabulous stencils designed by France and produced by Tando Creative. The first two projects because I wanted some storage for some of my goodies.
First was a little book case to house the mini books I'd already made. 

Decorated with crackle paste through the "Rockformation" stencil on the outsides before painting and inside paint through the "crackled" stencil on back and shelves and paint through the "torned circle" on the insides and stamped with crackle stamp from "Rock'n Rust" plate.

Next storage for those stencils.....or for the journals that France both encourages, teaches and inspires with the help of her special team of butterflies both on facebook and her blog.

Purely functional with just the moths from the "Creepers and Crawlers" plate. Stamped onto some brusho-coloured watercolour paper and cut out, with a bit of interest inside with heat embossed owls from Stampendous.

The purely functional projects done - some real playtime.

This acrylic tag went in the box of some very special items to France. I must give a shout out to Nikki Killinger for the backwards crackle technique. Such an awesome way to decorate any clear substrate.
On my tag I used the boy from "Auntie Maud & co." and the little hearts and sentiment from the "perfect words" plate. 

Another tag - just because

From the Tando kit "France Papillon Tags and embellishments", and using "Rock formation" and "Rusted rivets" stencils with crackle paint before painting. A dusting of stampendous embossing enamel. The newt was cut out from tissue paper and adhered with matt medium. The moth was stamped into hot glue, cut out and coloured with mica powders. Both stamps on the “creepers and crawlers” plate. The sentiment is from the "Perfect words" plate stamped onto part of the embellishments kit that was painted, treated with one step crackle and then English red oxide antiquing cream applied and wiped back. Rusty wire "holds" it all together with a little help from some 3D glue.

Finally 

as previously mentioned, France is very inspirational in the Art Journaling field as well as Mixed Media. It is because of her that I actually started my very first art journal after all these years of not understanding "WHY". Anyone who has not done any art journaling and is still dithering really needs to go and get stuck in. The “A layer a day, a spread a week” approach is really working for me and I know I'm not alone. I won't bore you here with my spreads done so far but one of the prompts was "Shadow of the morning". This next piece evolved whilst playing with decoart sosoft fabric paint with this prompt in mind.

You can see the "rusted rivets", "circles", "torned circle", "crackle" and "rectangles" stencils all being used before stamps from "Rock'n Rust", "Perfect Words" and Auntie Margot and co" make an appearance. This piece of fabric has been used to cover a 3x3 signature booklet made from A4 envelopes I have, that were bound, coptic style.

the fabric adhered to the envelopes and machine stitched round the outside

I hope you enjoyed looking at these projects almost as much as I enjoyed making them and I thank you for your endurance.

Once again, I want to thank France for not only choosing me as her guest on her blog but for being such a wonderful and inspiring lady.

All the paints/mediums are from Decoart 

(except the brushos and mica powders)

All the stamps, stencils and more can be found in France's shop