Pride, honour and egg shaped balls

Challenge over Simon Says Stamp and Show is - men only this week.  No it doesn't mean only men can enter ( I do occasionally let my husband near my craft room - usually to make my birthday card) but that we create something which is a a bit bloke orientated.

So on my desk for a few weeks I've had this inked up rugby image ready and waiting for me to do something else with it.  As you know (if your are that way inclined) the Rugby World Cup is on a the moment in New Zealand.   Rugby is also quite a "big thing in our household", we have season tickets for Northampton Saints and go to every home game and away games - especially long distance like Ireland Wales or Scotland.  So far this season we aren't doing quite as well as we did last season (finalists in the European Heineken Cup) but as we have so many squad players in the World Cup team we are hoping this is a short term blip and perhaps this year is a consolidation year for our newly revamped bigger squad.

Ok sport talk out of the way and back to crafting!

I've had the rugby team stamp for ages from PaperArtsy (fellow rugby fanatics), it so reminds me of a picture of my Grandad from the 1930's in a similar pose with his team (must find that and scrapbook it). I also really love the shabby chic look that you often see Union Jacks or the St George's cross in graffiti style high end expensive art, so thought I'd combine.

Started off with some card that I painted in a light grey acrylic and Pumice Stone Distress Stain. Then using Fired Brick and Bard Door Distress Stains I "painted" a St Georges cross across the card.  Finally stamped the boys in black stazon.

I sewed round the edge of the card in grey thread quite a few times and then distressed it some more with walnut stain ink and heirloom gold perfect pearls spray.  Also smooshed the edges across my craft mat where excess ink and water were as well.

The large tag underneath is an old manila folder  (I have loads knocking around now after we tidied up the study last week). I stamped a Tim ledger stamp at the top and then stamped again down the card using a large post it note to mask off the top bit and just gt the lines. Stamped the numbers in grey stazon (first and second stamping to get the faded look) and inked with walnut ink.  

The background is part of a new project for me.  I make so much stuff (according to my husband) that I'm running out of space to display it, plus I really wanted to get back into using my photographs in my art.  So i thought why not revisit where you started and scrapbooks!  So I've dug out an old 8x8 scrapbook album.  I like the idea of working in this size, tags will sit nicely on this size page and still leave lots of white space which I like.

So cut a piece of 8x8 card and trimmed down a bit.  Using Frayed Burlap and Fired Brick Distress Stains I just painted some colour on and used a baby wipe to move it a round a bit and soften the edges.  Flicked loads of water on from the palm of my hand to get big water stains.   I stamped the pen nibs in black stazon and distressed the edge.  Attached the tag to the background and them stamped three lions down the left hand edge. Finally grounded it all by sticking it all to an 8x8 piece of light brown card.

From something that was sat on my desk for a while with that I like it but what next question mark hanging over it, this has turned out rather nice, grungy and some might say messy (I appreciate that the grungy look isn't every ones cup of tea) but it suits me.

Well I'm feeling much better than I did yesterday, so more crafting, necessary housework and possibly some gardening!

hugs

jo

xx