"Far in the East....

Boadicea, standing loftily charioted..." (Tennyson)

All stamped with IndigoBlu Boadicea A5 stamp set

Well, I am in East Anglia here, the fenlands of Cambridgeshire, bordering Suffolk!

I've chosen to work with this stamp set as it's such a beautiful image of Boadicea and I was drawn by that Celtic part of me.

I started out with an 8"square piece of Kraft card. I chose the border from the A5 Boadicea stamp set, to 'stamp up' IndigoBlu Flitterglu all around the edges, which I them covered with Yorkshire Dales Mega Flake.  I also edged this and a 6"square of IndigoBlu black stamping card with Flitterglu and Mega flake.

I cut a 4 3/4" square of IndigoBlu white stamping card and stamped Boudicea in the middle using black Archival Ink (Ranger). I inked around using Distress Inks Peeled Paint, and also a little Walnut Stain. I distressed further by adding a few blobs of water and dabbing, then finally spritzing with a little more water. This had a very interesting effect on my archival ink and I will further experiment with other inks and paper/card, however, using this archival ink on the IndigoBlu stamping card, caused the ink to raise slightly, which left it with a very slight embossed effect, which I rather liked.  I coloured in the image using distress inks and a water brush. I love the way the distress ink gives a muted colouring in look. Finally, I added a 'sketchy' border (which matched the wording stamps used next)

I stamped up a wording from the Boudicea set, cut and inked up with distress ink. I spritzed these to give the wording the 'raised' effect I mentioned earlier.... I'm really not sure if this is an actual technique used, but I did come across this quite coincidentally, and I thought it worth mentioning!

Antique bronze wire roses (pre-glued!)

Lastly, inspired by the rose in the main image, I made myself 3 roses out of antique bronze wire, with a few little swirls. These I stuck down using a glue gun.

Overall, this looks like an image that has been framed, however it is quite flat, apart from the roses. This could be used as a wall hanging, or stuck to a card as a topper - if I was to put this in the post, I would not add the roses, although they are not overly heavy.

I do hope you like this and I welcome any comments or questions! I may recreate this one for a demo piece and try some different colourways....the frame in black would be very dramatic! However, this piece was needing a far less prominent frame, and gives a lovely aged effect (I hope!)

Peace to all!