Oooh La La - Anything French - Craft-Room Challenge DT

Hi, I hope you're all well.  Hasn't the weather gone so cold!  Wow what a record number of entries we had to our last challenge over at the Craft-Room! Mervi has her work cut out choosing just three favourites, however it's now time to move onto the next theme.  This time, the very talented Debi (who does vintage so beautifully) is our hostess for the next fornight, and she has chosen the theme of:

Oooh La La 

(Anything French)

I couldn't make my mind up for what to do for this one, but in the end I opted to create a fabric wall hanging which, I kid you not, has taken me ages to make.  The intention was to create the window of a little boutique (in France, of course!):

This is made from natural untreated canvas and some Laura Ashley fabric.  The base piece was dyed a light brown then spritzed with some SU glimmer mist (this is gorgeous, and gives a lovely twinkle on fabric, in the right light!).  Various stamps were used with Coffee archival ink to create a background.  The dress forms were also stamped in archival ink and cut from canvas, glued down onto hessian and then stitched in place.  The most difficult part of this was working out in which order to put everything together, lol, as I'm definitely  no seamstress!  I attached a pole through some doubled over carpet webbing and hand sewed to the top of the hanging. I've backed this with natural canvas so that the stitching can't be seen, and strung some burlap twine to the pole from which to hang from.

I've managed to get a half decent picture now outside in the daylight, but this is much nicer in real life.

All the stamps used on this are by Oxford Impressions, from the Dress Forms and Corsetry plate, which is one of the ones that I recently treated myself to (we have to be nice to ourselves now and then!).  There are so many stamps on each plate, the possibilities with these are just endless - I love them already, and can now see why Lynne from Adorn likes them so much - she makes the most stunning creations using this range.  The inspiration for this came from a project in the OI gallery (thank you!).

Our challenge this fortnight is very kindly sponsored by:

 There will be a prize for one winner chosen by random draw!

(see challenge blog for full rules)

If you would like some inspiration, please pop over to the challenge to see the stunning creations the other DT ladies have made for you, you won't be disappointed.

I can't wait to see your french inspired creations!

Before I go, I would like to enter my wall hanging into the Rogue Redhead Designs current challenge of "Uncard", i.e. any project that is NOT a card

and also a few others:

Crafty-Embelies (#5) - Vintage/Shabby Chic
The Artistic Stamper - Anything Goes
Creative Inspirations Paint - Anything Goes
Really Reasonable Ribbon Challenge - Anything But A Card
Joanna Sheen Challenge Blog - Anything Goes Excluding Christmas

Bye for now, and enjoy your week!

Maria xxxxx