have courage .. for countryviewcrafts monotone challenge dt piece

Well here is my second piece for the month for the challenge over at countryviewcrafts challenge blog and this month the theme is monotone.... so much a favourite of mine. So without further ado here is my make for today :

So for this piece I chose to work in softer tones and tried really hard to make a fairly gentle piece...not sure if I achieved that or not? but I started with an mdf base, covered in ivory cardstock and then got playing with some yummy antique linen distress paint...

I then added a bit of script and these gorgeous flourish stamps, stamped with distress paint... then  onto all the decorations :

So here are some of the pieces that went to make the finished piece, the flowers...cut from ivory cardstock , edged with vintage photo an then made using a tutorial by the lovely Jennie...which can be found here....... now I know they are not up to her amazing standard but I do think I may be slowly getting better!

her tutorial just gives the fab Tattered floral die by Tim Holtz another fab look. 

The sentiment is one of the last year release from Tim that I love, stamped in coffee archival and clear embossed. the foliage was all cut from spellbinders foliage 2, but let me tell you about a fab thing...have you tried the new magnetic plate for die cutting...if not wow its so cool, no more bits of sticky tape to keep those fiddly dies in place ..this is fab..
Now for the leaves...i love playing with my melt pot and there is a great technique using the melt pot with UTEE and shrink plastic that I never tire of...its just so cool!  So here is how I made these leaves :

I die cut some clear shrink plastic using the tattered leaves die..set aside and added clear UTEE to my melt pot and left to do its melty magic...then  when all melty I added the die cut shrink plastic leaf and wow it curls and shrinks...then removed with tweezers but the really cool thing is it gets coated in a gorgeous UTEE coating giving a really wonderful glossy sheen .
To complete the piece I added some pearls to the flower centres, some embossed flourishes to the base using sticky embossing powder and rock candy distress glitter and there you have it my monochrome make...

( sorry no pearls in this one above , they were a last minute touch!)

make sure you pop across and see all the other fab DT and GDT makes and maybe join in the fun...you never know you could win a voucher or be chosen to GD next month ...we would love to see you playing along!
keep those hearts full and happy x