Compendium of Curiosities - Challenge No.4 - Shabby Chic

This week's challenge set by Linda on her blog Studio L3 is to use Tim Holtz' technique called 'Shabby Chic' as explained on page 49 of his book Compendium of Curiosities.

I didn't have any of Tim's Distress Embossing Ink so used Versamark Waterstamp instead, but the technique still worked quite well I think.

I used two colours of acrylic paint (Midnight Garden by Folk Art and a Terracotta Dabber by Adirondack). The rubber stamp is from Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous collection (Slight Alterations)

It looks more like shabby grunge to me rather than shabby chic, but it makes a nice background to the birthday card I've made for my nephew Aaron who will soon be seven.  He plays in goal for the local football team and we quite often sing this song to him - which could of course apply equally to the England's team performance in the World Cup recently!!  Luckily Aaron has a good sense of humour and doesn't mind us teasing him with the song - not that he lets that many goals in anyway.

I made another background using this technique too - much more like shabby chic this time and more feminine too.

I'll probably make this one into a card as well.  I don't usually enjoy making greeting cards, but it'd be a shame to let all these different backgrounds go to waste.

Have to wait until next Monday to see what challenge Linda will set next from the book.

In the meantime I'll try and get around to looking at all of the other entries for this challenge, but that could take some time as these challenges are proving to be very popular indeed.