Spring Into Action at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog

Hello everyone, sorry for my lack of visiting lately, just very busy with life and work stuff at the moment which has cut down my blogging time.
A quick post to let you know that a new challenge is up for March today at That's Crafty! Challenge Blog where our new theme for the month is Spring Into Action which we could certainly do with after last week's arctic temperatures and snow. A bit warmer now and sunny with showers so maybe Spring is around the corner.
My inspiration is a mixed media panel featuring the most springlike of my new stamp designs which was inspired by a parrot tulip. Hope you like it.

What I did was to start with the backing panel which is an 8 x 8 rounded corner white/greyboard panel which I painted with green multi surface paint. I then added the detail with texture paste through the floral frame stencil and when dry, painted with yellow and orange multi surface paints.
I then took 3 MDF atcs and used the new bark dinky stencil (coming soon to the shop and Hochanda) with texture paste to make a tree bark look - much quicker than my previous method with a skewer!
Once the paste was dry, I painted the bark with a mix of chestnut brown, black, green and grey to look as realistic as possible.
I stamped the flowers on to some mixed media paper painted with multi surface paints and stamped with a sequin waste texture stamp. I cut out the flower heads only from my red and yellow paper, stamping again on green and trimming closely round the head area then glued the red and yellow heads over the top.
I glued the tree bark panel to my background panel, following up with the flowers, adding just part of the text from one of Melina's stamp sets, stamped on a scrap of orange paper, to the middle flower, tucking it under the leaves.
To finish off, I stamped around the edges of the panel with the sequin waste image and Spiced Marmalade oxide ink.

Supplies Used:
That's Crafty! White/Greyboard 8 x 8 Panel with rounded corners
That's Crafty! MDF Atcs
That's Crafty! Clear Stamp Sets - Fanciful Flowers Set 2, Nature's Faces Set 2, Textures Collection Set 4
That's Crafty! 8 x 8 Stencil - Daisy Frame
That's Crafty! Dinky Stencil - Tree Bark
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paints
That's Crafty! White Texture Paste
Tim Holtz Oxide Ink - Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick, Fossilised Amber
Archival Jet Black Ink
Silicone Glue
White Mixed Media Paper

You have a whole month to enter the challenge which is now open to entrants all over the world and there are great prizes up for grabs too.

Have a great day.
Fliss xx