Craft Barn Alpha Challenge. . . . . . . . .

The Craft Barn Alpha Challenge has moved onto the second letter this fortnight. The letter we have to use is C and I've chosen the word 'compass'. I started with two compass stamps, one from Tim Holtz and the other from Oxford Impressions. I then just played with inks, die cut letters, a stencil and some glossy accents. It's such a fun challenge and I like the freedom it gives you to just 'play'!

Here's what I produced:

I'm having trouble with achieving a neat finish where the pages meet, a length of jute twine sorted that one out! As well as the large compass image, you can see two smaller compass pieces in top right and bottom left. They were produced using the same method as described later for the larger images.

The letters were diecut, stamped with the main compass image with a toning shade, inked and then coated with glossy accents. The arrows were stamped, cut out and they received the same glossy treatment.

The Tim compass was stamped onto the page and then onto spare card. The image on card was coloured with a mixture of distress ink and water soluble wax crayons. The centre of the image was cut out and given a glossy finish. Some smaller letters were cut, stamped, inked and glossed for the main compass points. The smaller compass images can be seen in the background here too.

Tim compass image was stamped in archival and in distress as shown in this image. The borders were created with a dylusion stencil, distress markers and the water soluble crayons.

The word and definition was left white and further highlighted by some black pen and more arrows as discussed earlier. Another stamped compass was coloured, cut into appropriate sections and then given the glossy makeover.

As well as the background stamping, the pages were inked with distress and spritzed with water.

Thank you so much for the wonderful comments I received for my ATC (previous post). It really means so much to know that you like my work - we all have doubts at times and although I'm enjoying what I do, sometimes I wonder why I'm doing it. Then I remember (or remind myself ) that it's FUN!!