As I sat down to create in the midst of a summer that I hadn’t planned, my mind wandered to the beautiful things. The things that make me appreciate summer. Beautiful colors. Flowers. Birds singing. Breeze blowing through open windows.
All this had me in the mood for an explosion of color. I used my fingers to loosely apply paint in a tribute to a gorgeous sunrise or sunset. The colors were a little too bold. Too in your face so using a baby wipe I blended and softened the page until it made me happy.
I pressed uninked rubber stamps into the paint to create some interest on the background as the stamps pulled even more of the still wet paint away with them as you can see above with the grid pattern.
After heat setting the page I used a harlequin stamp with white ink to lightly stamp randomly around the background using white embossing powder over top to provide a little more kick to the white.
Digging through my stash I found some rub-ons that fit my theme perfectly. The black really pops against the background.
A canning jar full of flowers screams summer beauty to me, Casual, simple, perfect.
I really wanted it to appear that these flowers were indeed inside a glass jar. This gave me a bit of a challenge.
I stamped the jar twice. One was clear embossed for later use. The first was adhered directly to the page. I then stamped my bouquet of flowers onto tissue paper using black Staz-on ink. I adhered the tissue with matte medium and placed on the page, partially “inside” the jar.
Next I cut out windows in the clear embossed jar. I cut a piece of vellum to fit and gave that a bit of shimmer with clear embossing as well. I carefully stacked and glued the pieces of the jar over the original stamped piece. Much to my great pleasure, the stems of the flowers shone through the “glass” as I had hoped. I used a Tim Holtz word sticker to sum up my thoughts.
The jar seemed to be missing something so I thought about the basket of goodies I carried home from a friends house like Little Red Riding Hood.
The perfect embellishment was right there.
I’m linking up today with Art Journal Journey for Inspired by… the theme chosen by this months host Gil from gibbyfrogettcraftations.
Your spread is simply BEAUTIFUL dear Halle! Great to see it linked to Gill’s AJJ Inspired by theme!Thank you very much!
Have a great weekend ahead!
oxo Susi
Your page is beautiful and summery with wonderful details which I was so pleased to see in your close up photos :)
Love the flowers in the jar very much and the backround textures/patterns are fabulous.
Thank you for sharing what inspired you and joining in at AJJ.
Gill x
Absolutely adorable. You put a LOT into this spread, and a lot of thought into creating it, too. It’s a genuine tribute to summer. I love the jar of flowers and the bit of whimsy, too. Wonderful entry. So glad you shared it with us at Art Journal Journey.
Hope you are feeling better, too.
It’s a beautiful summery spread Halle!
I absolutely love this spread, Halle! Thank you for sharing all the details. I didn’t know there were white ink pads. So I’m looking in Amazon and there are too many types I don’t know which to choose.
Love this spread!!
Thos is a fabulous spread! I love the jar of flowers! The colours sum up the best of Summer! Not a hint of humidity – just a petfect sunny day! So pleased you linked to Art Journal Journey! Thank you so much! Hugs,Chrisx