The Documented Life Project - Week 6

I nearly didn't get to work on this week's challenge - between work and dog, life is busy. So I decided to keep it simple - not so many steps.

1. Find a Pinterest pin that inspires me. That's the challenge. And yes, I'm still 12 weeks behind everybody else. And despite the long weekend (May Bank Holiday), I won't get to do much more. So I started digging through my thousand + pins - I was looking for ideas around a lovely plant from the umbelliferae family, for which I had quite a few pins actually. The one that I decided to use was a pin on a board entitled Hogweed and Cow Parsley, and it is a piece of textile art by Kirsten Chursinoff, who makes beautiful pictures with thread and fabric. Since I am not about to embark on yet another art form, I decided to interpret the idea with a hand-made stamp
2. As usual, I picked a page that I had already painted with left-over paint from Gelli printing. This one has a simple polka-dot theme from a free stencil I received from Gelli Arts when they sent me my Gelli plate, or was it from the UK distributor? 
3. I then got to work on my stamp with my carve-a-stamp kit. This is the most intricate stamp I've ever done - yes, I'm a beginner - so I was worried that I might make it too chunky, or, cut through a stalk in my attempt to carve intricate detail. But it all worked out, and I'm rather pleased with the result. If it wasn't for this challenge, I don't think I would have tackled such an intricate stamp. So my thanks go to the ladies from Art to the 5th for their inspiration, or rather for helping me convert inspiration into actual art!
4. I applied paint onto a label (with Distress Stain (Jim Holtz)), which I glued on the page
5. Attached a cute little butterfly from a pack of Japanese stickers a friend sent me
6. Glued a Japanese stamp
7. Stamped "bank holiday" with a new set of Urban Stamps I got in town last week.
8. Added doodle dots
9. Attached cute little labels - these are from my attempt at gelli-printing onto a page of self-adhesive labels - for the most part, it was a failure as the labels became unstuck from the backing sheet when I lifted the print, but a few of them turned out ok
10. Then, an after-thought - added a bit of washi tape - I think the red polka dots bring a little bit of colour to the whole thing
11. I called it done! 11 steps only!

My carved stamp

Testing the stamp

Testing the stamp - I think I'll use this one in another project - too pretty to leave in a sketchpad

With the washi tape