Lawender Dreams

- MONDAYS WITH GILL -

So amidst the stresses of everyday life Lavender is such a calming fragrance and for me this project was a very important way of coping with the difficulties life has a habit of throwing it our paths. We may choose to persevere or to succumb but life has so much to offer and so I choose to persevere.

For this project I have used one of my favourite paper pads by Provence by Stamperia  to make a dimensional home decor piece. 

To make the background I took the crackle paper from the pad and scored it at approximately 2" (2.5cm) intervals using a score board. I then folded the paper in both directions to re-inforce the fold lines before laying it down flat and swiping  Dusty Concord and then dried lavender distress oxides from top to bottom. The inks highlight the vertical score lines converting the paper into the look of distressed wood.

I lined four 20 x 20 cm wooden trays with co-ordinating paper adding some muslin on top before cutting four square images from the paper pad and then adding these with foam pads to the center of the trays thus making 4 panels. If you can not find the wooden trays then mounting the images onto a piece of cream card leaving a margin for contrast would work equally well.  I then cut elements out from a second sheet of the same paper shaping them gently before decoupaging them over the original images.

In this image I cut out the bags and also some of the lavender elements to build up my mini picture. I then added a piece of string to one of the bags and a hand tied co-ordinating ribbon bow to the other. I added a small piece of chipboard to the bag.

 For this panel I simply added a double lilac ribbon to the centre of the spray at the bottom of the panel.

For the next panel I cut a piece of ribbon and adhered it to my panel. I then cut out the flower pot and shaped it before layering it over the original one. I then fussy cut some of the flower sprays and put them into the pot along with some of the chipboard flowers snipped from chipboard village scene set before adding a ribbon bow.

I added dimension to this panel by adding a layer of lace close to the bottom before adding some chipboard elements. I tied a lilac ribbon to the handle of the watering can..

To the front of all of my trays I added pieces from the same chipboard set cut to size and then gave everything a dusting with a product called flower soft.

Having completed all of my elements I then affixed these to my original piece of paper that had been adhered to a 12" x 12" piece of MDF to give the whole piece stability.

I used