How does your garden grow?

      How does my garden grow? - it doesn't! Plants wilt at the sight of me and quake with fear...I am a hopeless gardener - despite my love of flowers. Perhaps that is why they feature in so much of my work....at least I don't have to remember to water these!

     It isn't a canvas - I wanted to enter the 'Simon Says' challenge which asked to use something you were going to throw away. Several sheets of card had been rescued from the bin and were waiting to be used. I don't normally do this kind of thing on flat card - the card I am always eager to save is corrugated for lovely shabby effects. This is just plain thick brown card that arrived inside a pack of scrapbook pages......

    I was trying to achieve here...a kind of Victorian Summer garden, delicate roses, lots of random grasses, that lovely haze you find on a gorgeous hot sunny afternoon....ahhh bliss. I certainly have had a lot of inspiration with the gorgeous weather we are having...

     So I started off with that piece of plain brown card which arrived inside a pack of scrapbook album pages and was meant for the bin...and I applied texture paste through chicken wire stencil on opposite corners. I then painted the entire card with Vanilla Fresco paint and left to dry. When it was dry I dabbed Hey Pesto Fresco and Rose Fresco paint and wiped with a baby wipe.

   I stamped some Tim Holtz Hedgerow stamps with Shabby Shutters and Victorian Velvet DI. This dried very pale and I stamped further hedgerow stamps with Peeled Paint DI to give some depth and distance to the plants.

    I then cut out roses and daises from serviettes and applied them to the card with Mod Podge. I dry brushed layers of Hey Pesto, Chocolate Pudding and Vanilla Fresco paint around the edges and then dabbed a dot stamp with Chocolate Pudding and Vanilla Fresco paint

    The picture still looked very flat especially as the dry brushing of dark colours had made the roses appear in shadow. I decided to add some lighter roses to look like they were bathed in sunlight and again add further depth to the picture. Serviettes wouldn't show up applied to dark painted areas so I painted some Snowflake Fresco paint and applied the rose serviettes over the paint. I painted a light coat of Snowflake Fresco paint over the daisies to brighten the petals.

   
















    A butterfly was stamped on cream coloured card with Coffee Archival ink and stained with Tattered Rose and Bundled Sage DS and then covered in white iridescent Mica powder. 

Script stamp was added in Coffee Archival ink and I placed a quote in the centre stamped again with Coffee Archival Ink.

 A quick sponging of the edges with Chocolate Pudding Fresco paint added a vintage shabby look
            

 Hope you like this Summer picture! Hope to see you again soon!

I would like to enter this in the following challenges -

  Country View Challenge - Summer Sizzler
  Simon says - Good to be Green - Used discarded cardboard and green paint and inks
  Frilly and Funkie - Summertime!
  Fashionable Stamping Challenges - Flora & Fauna
  Vintage Stamping Challenge  - Pretty in Pink