Invited Guest Designer - Mo Stokes - Almo Craft

Today we welcome a wonderful crafter and lovely lady as our invited guest to share a project with us based on this month's challenge theme - Spring is in the Air. Welcome to Mo from Almo Craft.

Hi everyone, my name is Mo and I live in a beautiful part of Norfolk, England near the coast having recently moved from the North West of the country with my husband Alan who has finally retired after several years contemplating the matter, and our (cavalier king Charles/Pomeranian X) dog ‘Georgie’.

I have always enjoyed making things since I was a little girl, my brother and sister were the academic ones, I was the creative one in the family. I have always admired the work of Tim Holtz and I have been very honoured to have attended two of his amazing classes in recent years. I love learning new techniques and adding many different layers and textures to my projects, I need dimension and have great difficulty these days producing anything that is ‘flat’! My style tends to lean towards the Vintage/Shabby Chic side of things and I don't really plan my projects in advance, I just like to go with the flow and see where my imagination takes me.

I am so excited and honoured to be asked by Brenda to do a guest design piece for their latest fabulous challenge. I love all things botanical, animals, birds and the seaside - these themes tend to show up somewhere in nearly everything I create so the theme Sandy chose for this months challenge ‘Spring is in the Air’ was just perfect for me. I was inspired to make this shadow box following one of our daily walks with Georgie by Blackbirds singing away in the blossoming Hawthorn hedges.

I started by wrapping crushed tissue paper around my canvas to get some texture and when dry brushed gesso over it. I wanted the frame fairly simple so as to frame the inner detail better but I wrapped the twine around the frame and added the letters using tissue tape for added interest.

The background was created using firstly postal tissue wrap, followed by crackle texture paste through stencils, distress inks various stamping and die-cuts. The main hawthorn branch is a real one if you look hard you will see the thorns! but the flowers and flower buds are hand made using die-cut watercolour paper, a paper punch and painted stamen. Parts of the nest are also die-cut onto a real branch for dimension.

The star of the show ie the blackbird and the nest are of course from Tim's Bird Feather stamp set. The photo below shows you how I have fussy cut his claws to grip the branches. 

The eggs were also made from flower stamen, originally pink they were painted blue with tumbled glass distress paint and given a few dark speckles.

The photo below gives you a closer view of the shadow box, but for more photos and the full tutorial please visit my blog.

Thank you Mo! What a fabulously composed piece of art - your background is superb with all it's texture, the fussy cutting brilliant and all those details with the stamen! I am rather envious of your walks with Georgie in a part of the UK I haven't spent much time since a child, but I know to be gorgeous.

We do hope you have enjoyed Mo's wonderful creation and maybe feel inspired to play along with our Spring is in the Air challenge.

Many thanks for stopping by.

Nikki on behalf of the AVJ Creative Guides.

xxx