Autumn Flowerings

Hello all!  It's time for the new challenge at Our Creative Corner and this month it's hosted by the amazing Astrid.  She'd like to see Home Made Flowers and Hand Dyed Ribbons adorning your projects.

I don't usually make my own flowers (though it has been known!) so this was quite a challenge and, being an ornery type, when I saw the theme I decided to try to create something using Home Made Flowers and Hand Dyed Ribbons that wasn't girly!!

I think that's probably what took me into these colour tones - I really do seem to have hit an autumnal streak here at the moment.

Hopefully the weather will improve soon, and summer will return to Words and Pictures, but for now I seem to be wallowing in autumn melancholy.  (Witness my Autumn Leaves, my Urban Tapestry and even the Autumn Limitations of my June Tim tag if you don't believe me!!)

For help with the handmade flowers, I knew exactly where I was going - over to the fabulous flower tutorials of the lovely Jennie of Live the Dream.  

She makes utterly beautiful flowers, and you'll find links to her great tutorials in her sidebar - if they work for me, they'll work for anyone, trust me!  

All of these flowers are made using the Tattered Florals die.  I wanted that slightly blowsy overblown look of flowers at the end of summer, so I picked my tutorials carefully.





The large flower is based on Jennie's Cabbage Rose, and is made out of one of the grey sheets from Tim Holtz's Shabby Vintage papers.  

The plan was for a completely neutral palette, but as I sprayed the water on, the papers went slightly purply - it must be within the paper dye somewhere.










For the other flowers, I was using book pages to create some of the Vintage Roses from Jennie's tutorial.  Since we had that purple tone coming through on the large flower, I decided to add some hints of Milled Lavender and Shaded Lilac to the book page petals too.

Other than that, I used Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo to add inky highlights and shading to the flowers.








I had to smile as so many of you commented how realistic the leaves looked on my Tim Tag - I already knew that this was coming up, with some actual leaves on it!  

Those weren't real, but these are!  I got a big box of them in Kik (the Czech cheapy shop) while I was away, and they seemed the perfect complement to my autumnal blooms.









I was definitely pretty happy with my flowers - for a first-time attempt at these recipes - but then there was the question of what to do with them all!

I had one of the large papier-mache icons sitting around on the table, and just popped the flowers onto it to keep them safe... and then I noticed they looked pretty good there!








I cut the Sizzix Pocket Watch out of some quite sturdy mountboard, and cut the centre out with a sized circle to create the frame.

I messed around with various embossing powders - UTEE, bronze, copper, Weathered White - until I liked the result... then I had to decide what would go inside that.









(You'll be noticing a pattern here... no planning ahead - just a leap and then a ponder, another leap, another ponder!)

While I was thinking about it and trying various options (a quote, a stamped image) I decided to get the background done.










I painted Raw Umber and Burnt Sienna paints onto the surface, added a layer of DecoArt Weathered Wood Crackle Glaze and then a coat of Warm White paint over the top.

I did a bit of gentle inking over the finished crackle, and especially around the edges and then clear-embossed that for a dewy look.

With the crackle in place, I decided this gentleman from the Found Relatives was the best option to go inside the frame...

He's rather dapper, which certainly helps with the "not-girlyness" of the whole thing!  And why shouldn't men have flowers?!







I dyed my ribbons in colours which would tone in with the flowers - mainly Shaded Lilac, Milled Lavender, Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo.

The great thing about the pocket watch frame is it also has an obvious location for the ribbons to go.  They're secured in place with some rusty wire.











This being Words and Pictures, I really needed some words too, so I stamped this lovely sentiment onto card, layered it with some paper scraps which were hanging around and used one of my rusted Idea-ology Hinge Clips to hold them together.













Once I had that bit of rust, I wanted more.

So I added some rusted gears around the frame...











... and lots more curled rusty wire to the flower arrangements.

And I thought the Idea-ology corners made a good finishing touch, rusty or not!













So that's my offering for you for Astrid's lovely challenge.

If you want to see the beautiful inspiration from my fabulous team-mates, do hop over to Our Creative Corner - you won't be disappointed.  And we really hope that we'll see your Hand Made Flowers and Home Dyed Ribbons some time before the 28th of this month.  Be sure to check our rules to qualify for the prize draw, and come and play!





Thanks so much for stopping by today.  Hope the weather is looking up wherever you are - we're due to have some summery weather here tomorrow, so maybe that'll put a halt to all this autumnal melancholy... but don't count on it!

It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.
From The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
Old time is still a-flying
And that same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying
From To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick

White is an absolute staple in my neutral makes so, with the Warm White Crackle, the Weathered White distressing on the frame, and the off-white book pages and papers, I'd like to enter this in W is for White at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.
And at the Premium Craft Brands Challenge the theme is Roses are a Girl's Best Friend - or a man's too, I hope?!