Found in Nature

Hi everyone! 

 It is the beginning of another month so that means a new challenge over at Our Creative Corner!

       This month it is Claudia's turn to be the Challenge Host and she has provided us with a wonderful challenge! She would like us all to use this photo collage to inspire us!

  It is an "anything goes" challenge - as long as there are visible influences from the inspirational image! You can use only one or few of the images from the collage as inspirational source. You can go for a colour scheme you saw, a texture or shape, a theme you associate with the collage (in whole or partially). As long as you explain in your posts how your creation is linked to the inspirational image you can go for whatever it sparks in you. 

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I loved this challenge - the photos are so beautiful! But I didn't know what to make...a few ideas crept into my mind but they weren't grabbing my attention. While on holiday in Devon, my kids were looking around the campsite, exploring their new playground, and they found some stones and pieces of slate. They brought them back to show us and an idea came to mind....I asked if they could find some bigger pieces of slate? They ran off excited at their new mission and came back with loads of pieces. I selected one large piece and I couldn't wait to begin....

The first thing to do was ask my husband if he would mind drilling holes in the slate for me so I could make a hanging. I really didn't want to make it and then find that it shattered when drilled into. He happily drilled into the slate...now the gorgeous piece of slate could hang up on a wall.

The first thing I did was work on the quote...I used one of my favourite stamps and it gave me the idea to add some raindrops (more about that later) I knew I would stamp onto tissue and then stick to the slate because across the middle was a slight ridge. Nothing too major but it made it totally impossible to stamp directly on. I am also not a huge fan of stamping quotes direct as a slight mistake can be a catastrophe.

I needed to prepare the slate for the quote as the ink wouldn't show up too well against the dark grey. There were flecks of white in the slate so I chose to highlight this by dabbing Picket Fence DP over the center of the slate and blending it. When dry I rubbed over it lightly with a sanding block to reveal patches of slate.

The quote was stamped with Jet Black Archival ink onto tissue paper and stuck onto the slate with Matte Multi-Medium.

    Then I began to prepare the flowers and leaves. The flowers were dipped into Worn Lipstick DS which had been swiped on the craft mat and spritzed with water. They were then crumpled up and left to dry. I then attached three flowers together and attached with a brad and spritzed with water and given more creasing and squashing and left to dry before opening them up carefully.

The leaves were spritzed with Dirty Martini Dylusions spray and then edged with Vintage Photo DI. I then spritzed them with White Linen Dylusions spray and crumpled them up while still damp. I unfolded them when dry and dabbed a little more Vintage Photo DI over the edges.

The pieces of bark were bought over a year ago in a cheap shop in the Czech Republic that is similar to a pound store. I chose two pieces and stuck them onto the slate with strong wood glue as the basis for the decoration.

Around the wood I began to attach pebbles gathered from Ilfracombe Beach. While there I had scooped up loads of the pebbles which varied in size from a 10p piece to the size of lentils. I used various sizes and glued them around the pieces of wood.

I stuck the flowers and leaves on and then decided I needed smaller flowers....I used the smallest die cuts from the Tattered Florals Die cuts. I dabbed some Vintage Photo DI around the edge of the flower and then spritzed the ink with water. I got a piece of twine and tied a knot. Inserting the other end through the hole in the flower I pulled the twine through until the knot was the center of the flower. I trimmed the excess twine away.

I added some twisted rusty wire and some raffia that I had scrunched up into tiny balls. 

I really wanted to include the currants that were featured in the inspiration mood board, but how to make them? I sat gazing at the things in my art cupboard. The only thing I had were pearl beads....I attached them to some rusty wire that I twisted into branches.  They would need to be painted, but I didn't have any paint that was the right colour. Then I saw the Liquid Pearls in Onyx....perhaps that would work? I dabbed it all over the beads, but they were too grey. I grabbed the Pomegranate Seed Dylusions spray and spritzed over them....suddenly I had a gorgeous red/purple currants! Because the Perfect Pearls was still wet, the ink spray had left a shiny mottled texture to them - made them far more realistic than acrylic paint could ever have been

Then I applied some Decoart Liquid Glass, dabbing over everything - hoping that when the cloudy drops dried it would look like rain....I showed my husband the hanging when it was done and he said he loved it (that is a good sign!) I was especially happy when he added "Love the raindrops - that works really well" I knew it had worked!

Then I added some very strong rusty wire (the hanging weighs over 1.5lbs)
and I twisted the edges to secure it.

       And there it is - my very natural wall hanging - I love the fact that it contains items from my holiday and, despite the quote about the rain and raindrops scattered all over this hanging, it will always remind me of the very un-English summer weather we experienced on that Devon holiday this year - where the weather was tropical rather than filled with clouds and rain!

 Please hop over to Our Creative Corner to see what the rest of my talented team have made! 

We hope we have inspired you to give this nature themed challenge a go.....Come and join in the fun this month and you could be our winner and find yourself basking in the Spotlight in our Top Talent feature! You could be one of our Top 3 or even be randomly picked for this months sponsor prize which is very kindly provided by Tando Creative!!!

Hope to see you there!

Happy Crafting!