To Travel or to Stay Home in My Garden?

I'm a very conflicted person when it comes to travelling - I do love seeing new parts of the world or revisiting favourite parts, but I also really love spending my time at home, especially in the summer in my garden.

Shopping Our Stash wants to see a "Vacation Destination".  One of my favourite vacations ever was a trip to the Netherlands.  I really loved that country and would happily go back there (I'd especially love to go in the spring when all the bulbs are blooming).  I combined Shopping Our Stash with Color Hues "Teal and Orange".

I had a piece of mixed media cs that I'd drizzled masking fluid on. I sponged it in the Dutch colours of blue and orange, then stamped and heat embossed the windmill, lines from Gorgeous Grunge, and sentiment. Next, using Texture Paste, I glued down some torn dictionary pages with definitions of "windmill" and "Dutch". For a final touch I splattered some Archival Jet Black ink on the card.

A bit outside of my comfort zone, but fun to make!   And it will be perfect for a Dutch-Canadian friend whose birthday I missed!

My twofer is a tribute to my garden where my yellow roses are having a second flush of bloom.  It's for Beautiful Blossoms "Anything Goes Flowers" and The Flower Challenge "Add Spots or Stripes" (I went with spots).

I was inspired by something I saw on Pinterest to make this card. I love the watercoloured flowers with all the random stamping around it rather than the paint splattering I often do.

After stamping and watercolouring the image, I stamped the splatters, postmark, script etc. with a very pale ink. Added a heat embossed sentiment on a black cs strip, trimmed the panel with a square die, and popped it up on fun foam. 

   

  

 

Supplies for card 1:
Stamps - Deep Red windmill, unknown sentiment, SU Gorgeous Grunge
Ink - Distress Salty Ocean and Spiced Marmalade, Versafine Onyx Black, Ranger Archival Jet Black
Paper - white cs, mixed media cs, pages from dictionary
Size - A2
Accessories - clear embossing powder, masking fluid, Ranger Transparent Matte Texture Paste

Supplies for card 2:
Stamps - SU Elements of Style and Gorgeous Grunge, Tim Holtz postmark, SU sentiment, unknown script stamp
Ink - Versafine Clair Nocturne, Adirondack Lake Mist, ColorBox white
Paper - watercolour paper, off white cs, scrap of black cs
Size - 5.5" square
Accessories - watercolour paints, white embossing powder, Spellbinders square die, fun foam

Cutting up Books!

This week's SCS Inspiration Challenge uses a website called EcoCycled that uses pages from old books as backgrounds for art.

As a retired librarian, it's definitely challenging for me to cut up books! But I have some discards from the library so can manage to take pages out of them!

I ended up making two cards as I wanted to do one with the image stamped directly on the book page, and another where I layered the image on top. I like the first one the best:

I was inspired by the red balloon in this one:

and the red sun and layout with the sentiment at the bottom in this one:

I tore a page with a poem about poppies out of an old library discard of "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady". I stamped part of the Pleasant Poppies stamp in the centre directly on the book page, and then coloured it in with Distress markers.

I sponged the edges a bit to give them an aged look, added a couple of gemstones and a die cut sentiment, and popped the panel up on fun foam.


I'm not as pleased with my second one but it was a good chance to use a die cut / embossing folder combo that I've never used (so I'm entering it in Darnell's recently announced NBUS Challenge that opens in a couple of days):

I chose this image for my inspiration:

Instead of the three small dragonflies, I just used one large one. I die cut and embossed it, and then coloured it with Inka Gold.

The background is a page out of a dictionary discarded by my local library. I used the page that has the word "dragonfly". I highlit "dragonfly" with tiny gold sequins at the beginning and end of the definition. I sponged the edges of the page with Distress ink, added the dragonfly, a sentiment with ribbon, and a scattering of sequins.  Here's a close-up with the definition marked by the sequins:

That's it for today!  Thanks for stopping by.

Supplies for card one:

Stamps - SU Pleasant Poppies

Ink - Distress Vintage Photo

Paper - cream and brown cs, page from a book

Size - A2

Accessories - Tattered Lace Happy Birthday die, Distress markers (Festive Berries, Barn Door, and Vintage Photo), brown gemstones

Supplies for card two:

Stamps - Memory Box sentiment

Ink - Memento Tuxedo Black, Distress Frayed Burlap 

Paper - white cs, mixed media cs, page from a dictionary

Size - 6.25 x 4.75"

Accessories - Tim Holtz dragonfly die and embossing folder, Inka Gold, label die, gold ribbon, foam tape, sequins