Darcy's Inspiration!

Welcome to Magpieheaven. Over at Paper Artsy the amazing Darcy has been creating so much! Her brain just teems with wonderful creative ideas. If you would like to be inspired just click HERE. This creative genius even designed her own range of stamps for Paper Artsy and they would grace any project. One of the great things about Darcy is that she is not afraid of building a project, so although my contribution this week may not be directly an interpretation of what she has been doing, I hope it is in the Darcy spirit! I need a new memo board to match the new Magpie kitchen - whenever it emerges, butterfly like from its chrysalis. Now, Darcy created a great chalk board. What I loved about it was the way the Paper Artsy stamped flowers arched around the board, softening and adding interest and perspective. I love Clarice Cliff ceramics, so I thought, 'What if I make a board that sweeps and swirls itself like a Clarice country cottage and arrange  flowers around the edge?'

I had some large pieces of MDF left over from the demolition of our old kitchen cupboards. I cut this into shape using a Jigsaw, cutting a rectangle out of the centre so that I could stick a piece of Whiteboard to the back. I also cut out some die-cut Tim Holtz Tattered Florals, which I painted with Fresco paints in Eggplant, Smoked Paprika, Baltic Blue and Tinned Peas. I also die-cut a Tim Holtz 'On the Edge' border to make a gate similar to that on my repro Clarice Cliff mug; but I eventually decided against using this when I arranged all my elements on my base.

I painted the whole frame for the board in Snowflake, after sanding it down. Later I drew round the flowers with a black pen to give the Clarice Cliff definition. I decided that I would Crackle Glaze the roof so I painted over my Snowflake base with a good coat of Little Black Dress.

I applied Grunge Paste through a Crafters' Workshop 'chicken wire' stencil to the sides of the house and painted the chimney with some Smoked Paprika. I planned to use some Paper Artsy stamps on my board and the ones that seemed to fit the project best turned out to be  HP1006, Ink and the Dog Petals Plate 3 and the new Mini 95. I stamped the images onto tissue (Sssh! I still have about 2 sheets of Crackly - I must have hoarded this like mad!) with Olympia Green Versafine ink, which I heat set. I painted my house in Guacamole with some streaks of Zesty Zing on the roof; Pumpkin Soup and Smoked Paprika on the walls and then Guacamole again along the bottom. I used the script from HP1006 to add to the Grunge look on the roof.

I made a little green ribbon loop which I hooked over the edge of my board for keeping the marker handy.

Here is a close-up of the Crackle, the tissue stamp and the script and just a little bit of the Grunge Paste chicken wire, which I touched with some Treasure Gold. I stamped the butterfly from HP1006 onto Smoothy card painted with Smoked Paprika and high-lighted with London Bus and some Treasure Gold, I finished the butterflies off with little pearls and antennae, which I think are intended for use as flower centres.

The sentiment is from the Petals plate 3. I put pearls at the centre of the flowers and this one is an Eggplant flower stuck over a Smoked Paprika one - you can just see the orange petals under the purple. The bricks on the roof are stamped straight on from the Mini using black Archival Ink.

Here you can see the little birds in the grasses that I used from the HP 1006 plate. Finally here is a picture of my board and the first message I've written on it. It comes with best wishes to Paper Artsy and Darcy for all the wonderful inspiration they provide! And a special 'Thank You' to Leandra for suggesting I try blogging in the first place! What great crafting companions I've found since April!

Here's to another great ten years of fun and creativity!