Encore - A Happy Garden

Encore Posts

Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook.  I'm calling them "Encore" posts and they're formatted differently (all the way down the centre), so you can spot them easily.

Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

So that Words and Pictures doesn't become purely travel-blogging this week, I've decided to squeeze in another Encore for you today - not a very old one, but it has a definite breath of spring about it, so it seemed a good time to share it.  I'll be back with another instalment of China adventures in a couple of days (if you missed Part I of Beijing - The Forbidden City, just click the link), but for now here's what I wrote for the Artistic Stamper blog back in February 2015.

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Hello all!  I've been playing with some of the lovely new gardening stamps just released here at The Artistic Stamper to create a gentle tag.  There are some fantastic new releases.  If you haven't seen them yet, do check them out.  So here's my relaxing garden tag - a fairly simple affair, but it gives me lots of pleasure.

I started by putting Distress Ink onto a large acetate gridblock, spritzing it with water and stamping onto a watercolour paper tag.  I did some spritzing and flicking of water to create even more of a textured look.

The fork and spade are stamped in a combination of Coffee and Potting Soil Archival inks and clear embossed.

I stamped the very useful "extra bit of earth" next to the main image, so as to 'fade out' the earth rather than have it stop abruptly.

I added another layer by stamping the tiny bubbles from the Borders 2 plate in colours to coordinate with the background.

The sentiment is from a PaperArtsy set, and is stamped in graduated Archival inks - Cobalt, Leaf Green and Olive, I think, and then clear-embossed as usual.

I tried out a number of different embellishments, but each time I preferred the simplicity of the tag without any extras until I suddenly remembered these tiny wooden confetti circles, hiding in my stash.

I glued them in place and gave them a tiny swipe of Chalk Fresco paint from one angle.

The Distress-dyed ribbons at the top are tied with some Idea-ology paper string, and the whole thing is mounted on some distressed corrugated cardboard for that rustic look.

And that's your lot for today.  Thanks so much for stopping by - your comments and visits really mean so much.

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Well, my grateful thanks for your visits are as true today as they were when I wrote this post.  It's always lovely to hear from you, and I've been so happy to read your comments or just to see the continuing healthy visitor numbers during my enforced absence from Craftyblogland.  It's a pleasure to share the journey with you.  I'm afraid I'm about to set off journeying again, but not for quite so long this time.  I'll miss my craft desk - haven't managed to get there as much as I'd like in this brief visit home - but I wish you happy crafting all!

The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.
Gertrude Jekyll