The Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge - August

Another month, another Craft Barn challenge. And yes, it was a bit of a challenge. This month's verse from the poem "The Months" by Sara Coleridge is "August brings the sheaves of corn. Then the harvest home is borne." We have to include a tractor on our project. Sounds simply enough - not!

I started by brushing Distress Ink (DI) over my base card. The choice of colour was a no-brainer of course, it had to be Scattered Straw! I've used this colour throughout the project with just used some Walnut Stain DI to highlight. I then over stamped the base using the same colour and a splatter of dots stamp and a splatty ring stamp.

I have lots of stamps but my collection doesn't include any of sheaves of corn or a tractor. Luckily we own lots of books about rural England in days gone by - I'm old enough to remember some of those days including sheaves of corn! I managed to find a suitable picture in a book called "Golden Sheaves, Black Horses" by Fred Archer. I photocopied the image onto card and tore around the edge rather than cutting it out. I wanted to give it a feel that someone had torn a memory from a magazine. Then I brushed the picture with Scattered Straw DI and using the same colour I applied the ink pad to my craft sheet and picked up the ink with a dry bush and highlighted the sheaves. I sponged some Walnut Stain DI around the edge.

The tractor was an image found online which was printed out, brushed with Walnut Stain DI and then partly painted with Scattered Straw DI. I created a wrinkle free technique background on a piece of card again using Scattered Straw DI and die-cut the wildflowers from it which were then highlighted with Walnut Stain DI. Its amazing how many different shades of colour you get using the same ink pad but with different techniques of application and card. I finished off the page with the computer generated verse.

The page is yellow rather than orange as it appears in this picture.

Page Recipe
Card
Anna Marie Designs Super Smooth Printer Card 200gsm
Anna Marie Designs High White 300gsm
Inks
Distress Inks - Scattered Straw, Walnut Stain
Stamps
Splatty dots - PaperArtsy MN72
Splatty rings - Stamp Addicts, Grunge 1 SA-6062  
Other
Corn field image from "Golden Sheaves, Black Horses" by Fred Archer
Tractor image found online
Verse - computer generated with "Papyrus" font

The Craft Barn Song Challenge - Summer Holiday

We're going where the sun shines brightly

We're going where the sea is blue
We've seen it in the movies
Now let's see if it's true

Probably not true if you have been holidaying by the sea in the UK during the past few weeks if the weather here in Bedfordshire has been anything to go by - it's been blowing a hooley non-stop with frequent heavy showers to go with it.

"Summer Holiday" is the Song Challenge over at the Craft Barn - a song I'm sure that has been sung millions of the times in the backs of car over the years.  The challenge this time is that the project must only use turquoise, blue, yellow and a hint of magenta (pink).

I've been using postcard size card for this challenge and decided to turn it to landscape this time around. On reflection I could have made a postcard sent from the holiday destination! I started by painting my piece of card with PaperArtsy's (PA) "Caribbean Sea" Fresco Paint. The yellow paint  I wanted to put over the top for the sun's rays was translucent so I painted PA "Snowflake" through the stencil. I then went over it with the yellow paint.

I brushed a piece of card with two different shades of blue Distress Ink and stamped the image over the top.  Using a very light wash of white paint I went over the waves and then coloured the clothing with Copic marker. The other elements were stamped, coloured where necessary and cut out. The postcard was finished with the computer generated song title and artist's name.  

Postcard Recipe

Card

White card 280mic

Anna Marie Designs Super Smooth Printer Card 200gsm

Inks
Versafine - Onyx Black

PaperArtsy Fresco Paints - Caribbean Sea, Snowflake, Yellow Submarine

Distress Inks - Broken China, Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry

Copic markers

Stamps

Crafty Individuals - CI-284, CI-454, CI- 278 and flags (number unknown)

Other

Song title - Computer generated “Please write me a song” font