Tiny Greenhouses

Hello all!  I'm glad you enjoyed taking your Hats Off To Distress Oxides!  There's plenty more to come as I'm having great fun playing with them.

But right now it's a special day at A Vintage Journey.  We've reached the milestone of our third anniversary, and we're welcoming some wonderful new Creative Guides who will be travelling alongside us.  We're celebrating with an anything goes challenge, so it's All Aboard! for March.

With my dollshouse sideline, it was inevitable that Tim's new Tiny Houses die would be at the top of my list of the new releases (well, alongside the Oxide inks, obviously), and here's my first little outing with it (already claimed by Cestina for Small Worlds).







I cut my houses out of some paper from the French Industrial paper stash and used Distress Inks to add some springtime washes of colour. 













No making of photos, I'm afraid.  I forgot all about them, but you can probably most of what I'm talking about round the back of the houses.

I backed the paper onto some waste cardboard to give it a bit more solidity and stability.













This Tim Holtz grasses image is one of my all-time favourite stamps... it probably gets inked more than almost any other stamp.

Some book page strips add just a little extra touch of interest.















One of the Photobooth photos takes pride of place on the large house.















And she's living at number 17 - which was a happy accident... a serendipitous reference to 2017, for A Vintage Journey's third anniversary this year.












On the smaller house, I've used one of the mini-plaques and again, believe it or not, it was chance that I chose this particular one.













It wasn't until I was taking the photos that I realised that 48 is the age I'm going to reach in 2017, in a couple of months' time, in fact - so there's another birthday reference for you... albeit unintentional!













I chose a specific bit of the design to be used for the roof on each house (yay, something I did actually plan!).















And that got inked with Gathered Twigs rather than the blue/greens.

The paper flowers are unadorned, though I did take off one round of petals to make the smaller version look better on the little house.








I'm a little obsessed with these real dried grasses at the moment.  They've been on some of my favourite makes in the past (both in simplicity and in extravagance), and they're coming up on at least a couple more projects in the near future.

I love their delicate fragility.  And with those little heads on the stems, they're a bit like having white paint splatter in three dimensions.  Of course, there's lots of actual white splatter too!

Obviously, I can't manage without a couple of words, so there are some ChitChat stickers to fulfil that need.















They're tucked in behind the flowers, so that you can just catch glimpses of them.













I hope you've enjoyed this little tour of my tiny greenhouses.  Yes, I know that really they are green houses not greenhouses, but I'm sure you'll forgive me the little play on words... and they are fairly full of flowers as a greenhouse would be.











There's lots more inspiration over at A Vintage Journey and, as I mentioned, two fabulous new Creative Guides have joined our travelling troupe, so do hop over to welcome them on board.

We hope everyone will respond to the invitation - "All Aboard" - for our anything goes theme, celebrating this third anniversary.  We can't wait to see what you bring along for the ride.  And as well as our top three Pinworthy places, there's our randomly drawn prize on offer - this month from the fabulous Country View Crafts.

Happy Crafting all!

Who loves a garden loves a greenhouse too.
William Cowper



I'd like to play along at Frilly and Funkie where the aim is to "Welcome, Spring!"
And at Emerald Creek Dares, the March dare is to Splatter Some Fun... with my white paint splatters and 3D dried flower splatter, it seems like the perfect fit!
I'd also like to share these in the Anything Mixed Media Goes challenge at Mixed Media World