Tuesday 14 February 2012

Dance Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee!


This is my next Creative Expressions design piece. It's a wall hanging that was inspired by the film Ali.....It had been on the Sky + for ages and hubby and I finally got round to watching it the other day!!!! I think it had been saved for months, but we needed space for the Superbowl!! Hubby's a huge fan. So dance like a butterfly sting like a bee....started to buzz round in my head....excuse the pun. Having a butterfly and a bee in the Eco green, Garden Chic set just kind of started shouting out for some sort of Ali themed project.

I started going through the sports section of our paper for the last few weeks to see if I could find some boxing related cuttings to make a background with...so now this piece is not just about Ali, but also a tribute to his trainer who died recently. My paper was full of Obits, so I have used these to cover a piece of mountboard. I was going to gesso it....but a certain daughter had not cleaned it properly when she used it last and it was completely stuck...

Then I decided to use Eco paint...I used the sand colour, a little watered down, I sponged it back off the areas that I wanted the newsprint to stand out more. I distressed the rest of the background by dry brushing a bit more Eco paint in the same colour. I distressed around the edges of the mountboard with frayed burlap and aged mahogany distress inks. Then I stamped the ragged robin stamp across the bottom of the mountboard. I stamped the bee onto some cream card and then punched it out. This was mounted in a bottle top and encased in UTTE before being adhered to the card. The butterfly was stamped onto Glassine paper and then heated with a heat gun, this kind of melts the surface and draws the ink into the paper which worked really well for the wings

The text is stamped using the Creative Expressions vintage typewriter set by Sam Poole that we were demo-ing a few months back..I just stamped the typewriter keys out a few times, cut out the letters I needed and coated them in glossy accents.

A couple of other stamps were used, a bit of vellum, some chain and some eyelets and that more or less completes the project.

I would like to enter this into the following challenges....

"Aud Sentiments Challenge - anything but a card"

"Charisma Cardz - Anyting with wings"

"Colour Create - Light and dark browns with white/cream", I'mm hoping I'm ok with this one, counting aged mahogany as my dark brown, frayed burlap as my light brown and stone as my cream.


"Crafty Ribbons - For men and boys", might be a problem with this, I'm not sure if entries should have ribbon on them...couldn't see anything in the rules?

"Craft us crazy - Anything goes"

"Just for Fun - Vintage Men"

"The Outlawzs - Masculine Project"

"The Poodles Parlour - Anything goes"

15 comments:

Gabrielle said...

I love this so much! The whole idea is brilliant and I love the butterfly's word trail! Love the newspaper background too - inspired!

lalkygirl said...

what a wonderful project,gorgeous colours and so many fab details
thanks for joining us at the poodle parlour and good luck
tracey x

La Vikinga said...

Unusual project! I like the little butterfly flying around but then posing right there!

Thanks for participating in our challenge at Crafty Ribbons,

La Vikinga

Craft Addicts - Tracy Evans said...

Great piece Sue, well thought out and I love the background combined with the images. Love the use of the typewriter keys too. Tracy x

Anonymous said...

Isn't it amazing where inspiration can be sought.
A beautiful hanging and I love your choice of colours.
Wishes
Lynne

Unknown said...

What a lovely hanging, great work here. There is no requirement to use Ribbons on our challenges at Crafty Ribbons, if you want to use them that's fine but it is not a condition of entry. Thanks for sharing with us in our One for the Men/Boys challenge at Crafty Ribbons.
hugs
Dawn xx

Sue Nicholson said...

wow beautiful works thanks for sharing it with us at poodles parlour cheers sue n x

Zoechaos said...

Certainly Ali was a good vintage. Remember all to well his bouts with Mr. Cooper my father would not consider any other channel!

You were telling me about this piece the other day and it looks even better than imagined. XOXO Zoe

Von said...

lots of lovely things going on :) thank you for sahring at Just for Fun
Vin xxx

xxxtglxxx said...

this is great - love your inspiration! :)

Thanks so much for playing at Charisma Cardz this week,

hugs

xxalisonxx

Suzie McFloozy said...

Thanks for playing along with us at colour create this week & good luck x
((hugs)) Suzie xoxo

Sylvia x said...

Great card loving all the details

Thanks for joining us at Poodles Parlour

Sylvia xx

Sharon said...

A beautiful project.

Thanks for joining us at Colour Create for the Brown Challenge!

Sharon x

Siobhan Fyffe said...

What an amazing idea. Great card with so many lovely details.
Siobhan

hazel said...

A fabulous project Sue, I love it.
xxx Hazel.