Live Your Life ...

 We continue to live in strange times and I wonder when things will return to normal and what that normal might be!  England goes back into country wide lockdown on Thursday, seeing friends and family will be restricted, it is not going to be easy but I guess we've done it once we can do it again! I find remaining positive almost impossible but I keep trying.  

Keeping occupied is essential to me and with the wet cold weather now here there is a limit to what I can do in the garden but there are no limits to what I can create in my craft room.  I have a couple of knitting projects on the go as well as plans to return to dressmaking.  I always have card making on my list of 'things to do' and increasingly I am creating non-card projects, there are limits to how many cards I need!  I enjoy the process of creating but also need purpose - part of this is I achieve through entering online challenges, just to give me purpose for the project as well as for fun.

Many of the challenges that I enter are geared towards cardmaking so I've been hunting for challenges that include all paper projects and are not aimed at CAS projects.  My card making style is definitely Clean and Simple (CAS) but I like to try my hand at mixed media projects - tags, journal pages, ATCs, etc..  I found a new (to me) challenge Country View Challenges, I found it through Jane Tyrell (jane-janesjournal.blogspot.co.uk) one of the designers for the challenge (Jane is also on a STAMPlorations design team) - I love Jane's work especially the mixed media projects she has created recently.

I decided to enter this tag into the challenge:

The background was created using stencils and acrylic paints on a gelli plate - layering each colour and letting it dry before adding another colour.  The remaining elements were die cut from scraps of card before being adhered onto the tag.  The words were the final addition and were mounted with dimensional foam to give a little more dimension.

I used:

Tim Holtz - Splat die

Sue Wilson - Dandelion Posies

STAMPlorations - Newsprint Backround Bits #1 Clear stickers

Tim Holtz - Small Talk

Plus a variety of leaf stencils and some random pots of acrylic paint.

The November challenge at Country View Challenges is for anything but a card - just what I was looking for!!

This could also be a costly find for me as it has led me to the Country View Crafts is an online craft retailer .... something else I'm always on the lookout for!!

Stay safe!