2nd Star on the right, Straight on till morning

Before my current career, I worked for 7 years in Wardrobe Departments in the Theatre, mainly based in the West End of London, so I love a good bit of theatre and spectacle!  It goes without saying that I  absolutely adored Olympic Creative Director Danny Boyle's glorious Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday night. It was an absolute triumph for the creative arts. 

My 'best bits?' Oh, so many... The smokestacks rising atop idylic England, Sir Kenneth Branagh's reading of Caliban's speech, the Queen and James Bond! (How awesomely sporting is she?) Dame Evlyn Glennie leading the thousand  Drummers and super best bit... the Olympic Cauldron itself, a total triumph for the charismatic (and rather gorgeous) designer Thomas Heatherwick.... google him and you will read for DAYS!

So this little tag is my tribute to the Olympics... and it was a BEAST to take piccies of, just couldn't capture the gold and silver!

The 'faux leather' tag was inspired by Anita Houston's brilliant video tutorial yesterday (I think you should have got that phone to ring again Anita, it could've become a trademark!!) This is a really amazing technique which was taught to Anita at Ranger U by the God of Grunge himself, the amazing Tim Holtz and I liked it so much I used it straight away to make 3 backgrounds... the one on the right was then used for this tag. This picture was taken before I pounced and ironed! Here is the link to Anita's Tutorial post:  Faux Leather Tutorial

I used a mixture of Tim Holtz stamps to create the background, all stamped with Ranger Jet Black Archival Ink. The 3 gentlemen and those funky circles both reminded me of the opening ceremony and seemed to be the right ones to use. The rising sun seemed a fitting tribute too (Oh, what an old romantic I  turned out to be)

I used brads and Glassine paper to create my own Olympic sign... couldn't quite get that blue right though, but I am strangely proud of my little creation.

I added one of my own reinforced burlap flowers and gave it lots of gold around the edges (my tutorial to make these is here:)   My tutorial The bike reminded me of those extraordinary winged cyclists going around the arena towards the end of the show and also is there to represent sports generally. I had so much fun making this (well, when don't I?) I just had to take an extra photo showing our colours...

I am entering this into a few of my favourite challenges
The ever inspiring Sunday Stampers Challenge 'gold' Fields of Gold
Anything goes at Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Happy One Year birthday to you (so annoyed I didn't see the DT call for the New Challenge... I would have been brave and applied. I love this site, it is always squished full of inspiration and has an amazing DT) do check them out if you are not yet familiar with them. Anything goes and Anything goes at: Simon Says Stamp