Homemade embossing plate

Good afternoon folks.

The contractors have FINISHED, whoo who!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The last of the machines went this morning. I haven't been out yet to see what the drive is like but to give them credit they had replaced ALL the broken fence posts, even if some had rotted before they came. At lunch there was still a trench from the road to our pond that they cut for drainage and the track had some interesting things poking out, such as screws, glass, ceramic tile and metal spokes which I removed but at least they are not here. Al is keeping the odd bit of evidence close to his chest, not sure what he's going to do with it now. I hope that the house hasn't suffered from the vibrating roller as sometimes my feet were buzzing with the vibrations as I sat here typing!

Anyway it's time to remind you that there is still time left to enter this month's sketch/theme challenge over at STAMPlorations. Here is my inspiration for you.

This time as well as using the sketch I also used the theme of Alphabet. 

It's all down to you, choose one or the other or like me both.

I was struggling with the theme as I don't have many stamps that are alphabets but then I decided to make my own embossing plate using various alphabets and word dies (eg Warm Winter Wishes, amazing) in my stash.

To start I chose a variety of fonts and cut a random number of words and letters from scraps of white card. The words were cut up so that I could use the single letters, then with the alphabet die cuts I arranged then on a A6 piece of card, a bit like in the sketch. When glued and dry, I made a sandwich of plate, embossing mat, card panel, embossing plate (textured face down) and finally my 2nd plate. After running that through my Big Shot I had an embossed panel I could use but decided that the contrast under the stamped flowers was a bit too subtle so inked over with some weathered Wood DI.

On a separate panel, I stamped and embossed in white the flower from the Bloom Sketches set and watercoloured them with my Zig Clean Colour Brush pens. To make the top panels I drew a line where I wanted the embossed panel to show and trimmed the middle away. I then popped these up on pads and added the silver letters, cut using Magical and wonderful dies. I used the M from Magical and the u and w from the other, turning the w to make an m.

That's it from me, but please check out the rest of the team here where you'll also find all the Ts and Cs.

Don't forget you can get 20% discount when you order anything from the shop by quoting my discount code.

I'd like to join in over at:-