Lavender's Blue

What a difference a day makes! Yesterday, bright sunshine and warmth, today wet and miserable here in Staffordshire! There's a very bedraggled looking daddy blackbird running around in our garden trying to collect worms for his mate on the nest. He's not impressed with the weather either:)

Still, our gardens are getting a welcome drink as they try desperately to catch up with the seasons. Never before have the hellebores, magnolia, clematis, rhododendron and wisteria been in bloom at the same time - shame we can't get out there to enjoy it. My eldest's favourite flower is the lavender and it has to be said the fragrance takes some beating. It's where I drew inspiration for this card.

The background is one of my faux plaster ones (see HERE for recipe) - Alison (Butterfly) dared me to add frescos to it. Well I'm not sure if this counts but the wild planting in the background was done with DI's to give a faded look and clear embossed to add more texture.

As well as adding some complimentary CS I wanted the vintage/faded beauty feel to continue with added texture so some rusty tin metal sheet and delicate embroidered lace from The Funkie Junkie Boutique was just perfect. It also meant the sentiment wasn't lost against the background. Finally I played with the Melt Pot and created a stamped plaque using the same stamp utilised for the background. To give it more depth I added DP's to the stamp and applied these inside the plaque when it was cold. It never fails to amaze me how much detail can be picked up by the UTEE (in this case a Pearl CS one).

So in honour of the lavender in our garden I'm linking this to the Country View Crafts challenge - How does your garden grow. And as it has a definite vintage feel I'm entering the current Artful Times Challenge - Vintage, sponsored by Oyster Stamps.

That's all for today. Hope to catch up more tomorrow. In the meantime take care of yourselves, hugs Jenny x