Craft Barn Alpha Challenge - MA to ME

The latest Alpha Challenge at the Craft Barn is to select a word between MA and ME for your dictionary journal page.

I'm still on catch up and if you missed my 'Letter E' offering, you can see it here. I have the letter h to do as well but wanted to make sure I completed the current challenge in the time allowed.

For this challenge I chose MA and the word Madonna. I have just become the very proud owner of the stamp set 'Soul Of The Rose' (Oxford Impressions) and I had to use them. (Really, I've been drooling over this set for ages but didn't want to send to the States for it and pay the extra postage. That's Crafty got it back in stock and there was no holding me back!).

Here's my offering this time:

I'm still choosing to do a double page spread for each letter.

The image was stamped using coffee archival and antique linen was then added. The edges were scuffed.

As usual, I have left the definition visible although it's a little scuffed too but it is a second hand book after all! To add interest a border was added using gold embossing powder.

Each corner was stamped with a swirl motif and finished with gold EP. White gel pen was used to highlight parts of the motif.

The facing page with the definition was completed using distress ink nearest in tone to coffee archival. Corner stamps were the same and a border was applied to both pages using a versamark pen and gold EP. The same stencil was used.

The paper in my dictionary is very 'furry' as you can see from this image! For my background I used a new Andy Skinner stencil over the pages which had been sponged with distress ink. The same shade was used through the stencil. Fresco paint was used to randomly stamp text around the background. (I love the fact that these are matt. . . . more wish list items!).

The letters were die cut from packaging and coloured with the same distress colour used previously. The  corner stamp was then randomly applied to each letter using versamark followed by gold EP. To complete the letters, a coat of glossy accents was applied - for once you can't see this in the photo. (It usually just shines and ruins every image!).

Love the Fresco paint - it's almost 3D!

I hope you like this offering. I shall complete the missing letter H as soon as possible.

Do let me know what you think - I'm not big on journalling type pieces yet but I'm enjoying this challenge so much.