Be In The Moment – Mixed Media Card

Good morning friends and welcome to the first project for March!

And of course, I am running late again and will have to write this up after breakfast (even breakfast is running late this morning lol)

OK, so I’ve eaten and feel better, so here’s the story behind this card… this was kinda my first idea (wood background and some kind of nature) when I saw that the AVJ challenge was “wood grain” and I filled it away for later, but then I forgot all about it when I got my second idea, and then spent the rest of the month thinking about that one and cast this idea aside, not least because of time constraints.

Then last night as I was still trying to make the second idea work and getting nowhere, I was looking around at all the leftover bits and pieces I have lying around in the studio, and I came across these pieces of wood veneer, that were left over from last year after I die cut a frame from it – you can see the outer edge and the inner piece, well the frame was the in-between piece.  These are the leftovers so some of the edges are a bit rough but I don’t mind that.  So then I got to thinking about how I could use this actual wood on something.. but what?  The background btw is the one I was working on for the other idea but I did really love the veneer against it, so I ended up inking another piece of cardstock to use with the veneer.

There are not so many process photos of this one, in fact only two lol, because it came together very quickly once I found all the right parts.  These flowers are not the right parts!  They were left over from something else too, and I even went to the trouble of re-colouring them with Picked Raspberry Distress Oxide to try and cover up the brown bits, and even though I love these colours together (pink and brown) it still didn’t look right and I even managed to rip the head off one of the flowers in the process by being too rough with these delicate blooms.

After discovering another box of leftover bits and bobs, I could see a better idea taking shape.  I found these branch die cuts (TH Branch BIgz) already cut in brown card, and this Tim Holtz trinket box frame that I had layered up four times and painted with Metallique Hazelnut paint some time last year and never used.  I remember it was soon after this die was released and I bought it immediately and did this for a project and then went in a different direction, so into the box of leftovers it went.  Isn’t it funny when you find exactly what you need just when you need it?

I love it when a plan comes together but that’s not to say I didn’t waste a lot of time trying lots of different flower options, including a lot of my handmade ones in pinks, creams and white, before finally settling on these Prima flowers.  I can’t remember the collection right now but I will check the packaging later and add it to the supplies list.

So, all that remained was to glue everything in place, starting with the veneer pieces – oh but first, the paint splatters!  This time I used white liquid acrylics to stand out over the Distress Inked background.  Then started to stick everything in place, veneers then branches together, flowers on branches, then weaving the branches through the trinket box frame, and then finally gluing the trinket box frame in place.  I finished it off with a word sticker from Finnabair to remind me to be in the moment and a bit of matte white wax around the outside edges to add some highlights and called it done.

Wow how quick (and short) that was!  Especially after last night’s lengthy post 🙂  I hope you like this little framed flowering branch, and if you do, please leave me a comment below.

CHALLENGES

I am entering this card in the following challenges:
A Vintage Journey – Against the grain February Challenge woodgrain cardstock, wood veneers, branch die cuts
Simon Say Stamp – Wednesday Challenge – Anything Goes

Project Recipe

Altenew – woodgrain cardstock, wood veneers
Tim Holtz – trinket box frame (already cut and painted), Distress Inks – Gathered Twigs, Walnut Stain, Bigz branches
Finnabair – Hazelnut Metallique paint, word sticker, white wax, white liquid acrylics
Prima – flowers (Apricot Honey collection – Graphefruit Tart)
From stash: technically the branches, the trinket box and the veneers were all from the stash as they were all leftovers from other projects