Where did summer go?

I opened the front door this morning then quickly shut it - it was belting down!  Then ten minutes later it had stopped,  by the time I got to the supermarket the sun was out...   our British summer, isn't it wonderful?

Well it has been a week of results, at last my HB claim has been sorted out.  I got a phone call from the assistant finance officer who apologised for the long delay, and he confirmed that my claim had been accepted. Phew.   I know have all the pape work, so I can claim some money back, which is just as well as I've had the electric/gas, and water bill.  All are down on last year, especially the water bill, which I've halved.  It was difficult to keep reminding mum that we had a water meter,  but I am now more mindful, so the bill has shrunk.  So now I can start to plan financially, which is a big help.  I've also arranged my counselling.

 So now to the crafting.  I've done a few bits this week, though the twinchies defeated me, guess I wasn't up for something so fiddly when feeling stressed.  Anyways, I had this book of tags, which I split up, they are like mountboard.  So I painted on black and let it dry.

Next stage was stamping.  Nope I didn't use a white ink pad,  I got a very neat idea from Ally,  Stamps Away,  who showed how to use Gesso to stamp with. A brilliant idea.  She is so whacky and thinks out of the box on a permanent basis. 

So how to acheive this?   It's best to use either a one of those brown craft mats, or a glass cutting mat,  paint some gesso on,  make sure you have a big enough area for your stamp.  You don't need much, just a good layer, plonk stamp into gesso and stamp as usual.   You not only get the image, but also a textured effect.  You could speed up the drying process with the heat gun, but I just left mine to dry for about half an hour, good excuse for a tea break! 

So with the stamped image now dry, I used some mesh and a stipple brush to add some iridescent acrylic paint, I didn't reload the brush just let it fade towards the edges.   Using a smaller stipple brush I added a bit more paint round the edges.

I was feeling very pleased by this time, but needed to finish it off.  I had picked up a magazine which had a free embossing folder and three stamps, so I used two of the three stamps.  Stamped the image, then cut it out with a spellbinders d lite label,  and just inked round the edges. 

The end result is at the top.  It was a satisfying afternoon's work.  I do enjoy watching Ally,  she has some truly off the wall ideas and she makes a welcome change from the usual cardmarking kits! 

It was also a sad day, my next door neighbour was rushed to hospital after having a stroke, he is only a young man and it looked serious.   At first I thought it was my immediate neighbour, who had an angioplasty yesterday,  I thought maybe he'd had a relapse,  but luckily he is fine. 

Not sure what tomorrow will bring,  I've already prepped another tag, so may do that or something completely different, like paint a door!

Hope it isn't too soggy were you are.  Thanks for stopping by.