Compendium of Curiosities Vol 3- Challenge #25...My "Thinking Garden of Words & Numbers"

       April...means Spring is really getting serious about sticking around now! The temps the past couple of days have been warmer than usual at this time. Unfortunately, it brings thoughts of tornado alerts and severe thunderstorms. Last Sunday was Easter and we took our 2 big FurryKids over to France Park Stone Quarry and did some major hiking on the trails all around the cliffs. There was not a whole lot of green to be seen yet, but it was warm and sunny and since none of our 2 couples kids would be with us- it was a picnic just for us two...er.....FOUR. ;) 

 Maybe I should make that FIVE...since the original purpose was to take FlatStanley with us and get a bunch of photos of him visiting the park. More on the flat-mailed-man in another post, but he's mainly the reason I've been AWOL from my blog. Sorry I didn't get your SWEET, and Oh-So-GRACIOUS comments published until now!

      

                     I took a bit of liberty with CC3 Challenge 25 this time, and added a few extra pics so you can get a better view of this project. It began with the thought of ....well...THOUGHTS! I was pondering over which kinds of flowers I'd like to put out this year in the front and back of the house, when it came to me that's exactly how to use my new Frameworks- a tiny garden of my own INSIDE.

    And, I've wanted to do one of those sets of tags that are put together with 'hinges' that allow the tags to fold slightly and stand up on their own. So I began with making the outside- making it look like hinged gate boards by using an embossing folder in a DEbossing technique, added some Matte Medium (Thanks for the tips, Candy!), and used some shorter fasteners onto a pair of hinges I've stashed away from an old box that fell apart.

  Then it was on to the flowers! This is where I really began to parody my idea of "Thinking Garden of Words & Numbers" because you can clearly see the Dictionary wording on the ground flowers using the TH Alterations Tattered Florals Die; the smallest bloom, then outlined in Mustard Seed Distress Marker and shadowed in the back with Wild Honey Distress Stain. I used Tim Holtz's idea of a Long Fastener putting those together to "stems" of IdeaOlogy Wire Pins. you can clearly see the numbers in black and white that I used on the vine's blooms. I'd freehandedly cut those and used some Distress Paint in Spun Sugar and edged them with Aged Mahogany Distress Ink on a blending tool, put together with shorter fasteners in black for the fuller, larger blooms and white for the two smaller blooms near the top. The "vines" were simply different shades of green stock cut very thin on a long paper cutter, then inked up with various green shades of Distress Inks to give them a little natural 'depth' look. Then I followed the instructions for the Challenge's Frameworks and made a really COOL background with it, and pieced together some of the insides for the "grass" growing on the bottom, and then more for the vine trellis before filling the trellis up with all the vines by just weaving them all in and out and curling the ends. Then gluing on all the blooms, and lastly...I followed Tim's March Tag technique and made some very cool "BRICKS" !! I even layered them up like real bricks -my Grandpa Raymer would be proud of me learning along-side him while bricking not only our kitchen wall, but the rocks he'd done on the front of our house to match the ones I watched him do on his own house, too !  Yeah, that kinda took a bit longer than I thought and I was worn out that night, but the overall look is way too cute!! I went one bit further and made a little board sign and hung it up- cause THIS little thinking garden is only big enough for just me...and GOD. The very last touch was a little butterfly. Ok, I admit, the rest of the CC3 ppl are butterfly-happy and it's grown on me a wee bit. ;) I used a different odd-shaped clockhand and stuck a diamond on for his head, and used the same heart punch to make his wings out of mirror-shiney cardstock. If you'll notice- all the leaves are heart-shaped. The ground flowers' leaves are hearts cut in half and the vines have smaller hearts scored in half and green inks Distressed with a blending tool. The entire tag set is about an inch thick out to the front, but it gives it a realistic look.  

 





    I hope you've enjoyed looking in on this project and perhaps it's got you thinking of joining in on the Challenges from Compendium of Curiosities Vol 3 ! You do need to have your own book because we cannot share the techniques of each Challenge, and we've been getting two weeks to finish them- which I find is a good amount of time for completion....except for the Folio! That one was a toughie! And the best part of all: PRIZES!!! Some come from Tim Holtz and his BTS all-around-hilarious-handiman, Mario Rossi; and there are shopping certificates from both Inspiration Emporium , and the fabulous Linda Ledbetter's Funkie Junkie Boutique (from where I've already won a gift certificate.... and used it for the States Framelit Set on my previous post of "2015 Americana Album") !!

           Thanks so much for checking in on this posting, and for any comments you've left - they totally are SWEET!!!!  I hope to be back on with another post very soon for the 12 Tags of 2015: APRIL TAG.

Until then;

                                  Be safe, and HAPPY BLOGGING!!