Guardian of my Garden

Hello! Samantha here today hoping you are having a lovely creative day where ever you may be.

Today I would like to share with you a very rare thing. I scrapbooked. I think rofl. Technically it's not for a scrapbook but it measures 12 x 12 so in my head it's scrapbook size.

In the northern hemisphere we are now getting in to Autumn so I took the opportunity to remember Summer and this summer I really enjoyed spending time in my garden with my Mini Schnauzer named Poppy. 

 I'm always surprised at just how many creatures I can find in my garden. Those that live there and those that just visit. The only lodgers I don't really like are worms and slugs. Yuk! But I adore the birds and butterflies and ladybugs. They never fail to make me smile.

This year a neighbour gave me a Hydrangea as a thank you gift for looking after his garden whilst he went away. The blooms started off with the most delicate lilac colour. They then changed to a lovely almost bright Barbie pink and the finale is the colour you can see in the photo above. That really is the colour they are now. Beautiful.

The other photo shows Albert. He watches over Poppy and myself and the garden and brings a lovely calmness. In this photo Albert is holding this years Poppy head harvest. He looks rather pleased don't you think?

 As much as I love my garden in the day I also enjoy it during darkness and this summer I enjoyed a wonderful treat in the middle of August when there was the Perseids meteor shower. In just one evening whilst lay on the summer grass I saw dozens of shooting stars and made lots of wishes!

Moon gazing is done almost every night and more recently we had the blood moon eclipse. All in my back garden. Wow.

Back to my 'pages' as you can see it is made of cardboard. I just love a bit of recycling. I peeled away some of the cardboard cover to reveal the corrugated part underneath which adds a layer of depth. I cut it in two 4.5 inches in on one side and tied with garden twine and some crafty bakers twine. The whole area was given a thin layer of gesso leaving some bare cardboard showing through.

I decorated using some cloud design washi tape and tree bark butterflies. The tree decoration was made by making a paper cast of the stamp from the At Ground Level stamp set. This is easily done by spritzing your stamp well with water and then using a brush push some kitchen paper or toilet paper in to the stamp and repeating this step 5 - 6 times. Allow it to dry overnight and then give a coat of gesso to make it stronger and seal it. I painted it to match the green of Albert's harvest and added some sequin blossoms.

I used Susan's Doodle Stencil for the wavy line at the bottom representing grass and also to add the white flowers which give another layer of texture and a little brightness. I used Journal Doodles with a Heart stamp set for all the stamped images and used a neutral brown to match the cardboard and to make the green and pinks pop. Finally a little sparkle was added to the stars to make them twinkle.

As mentioned I used:

AT GROUND LEVEL which can be found HERE

JOURNAL DOODLES WITH A HEART which can be found HERE

and DOODLE STENCIL which can be found HERE

I do hope I have inspired you and I wish you a lovely day

Samantha Read

Susan K.Weckesser Design Team member