Sunday, 23 July 2017

The Craft Barn Twelve Month Challenge - July

Never throw anything away has proved its worth this month for the Craft Barn Challenge. July's verse is "Hot July brings cooling showers, apricots and gillyflowers" and we have to include a gillyflower on our project.

My first task was to identify a gillyflower. The dictionary definition is-

1. Archaic. any of several fragrant flowers of the genus Dianthus, as the carnation or clove pink.
2. any of various other usually fragrant flowers, especially a stock, Matthiola incana, of the mustard family.
 
I don't have any carnation stamps but the Crafty Individual stamp I have includes some flowers which look a bit like stock - no, just squint a bit! An apricot stamp has also eluded my collection for some reason! However, as I was thinking what I could use my eyes fell on an old diary (1986!) sitting on a shelf in my craft room that I had  put aside for that proverbial rainy day. The diary has prints of watercoloured paintings of fruit, flowers, birds etc. I thought it was a bit of a long shot for there to be an apricot print but low and behold I found this page - perfect!
 
 
It was painted by William Hooker somewhere between 1779 and 1832 and is a Breda Apricot.
 
I started my page (measures 5.75 x 5.75ins) by using hot colours to make a wrinkle free Distress Ink (DI) background and then over stamped it with butterflies, bees and script using Ripe Persimmon DI. I stamped flowers on the corners of the page with archival ink and watercoloured them using DI and then added the water drops. I photocopied the apricot image (I didn't want to use the original as I may need an apricot image again - you never know!)  and cut out part of it before gluing to my page. My challenge entry was completed with the computer generated verse from the poem  "The Months" by Sara Coleridge.


Page Recipe
Card
White card 280mic
Anna Marie Designs Super Smooth Printer Card 200gsm
Inks
Distress Inks - Ripe Persimmon, Spiced Marmalade, Fired Brick,
Ranger Archival - Jet Black, Watering Can
Copic marker
Stamp
Flowers - Crafty Individuals CI-411
Raindrops - Designs by Ryn Water Effects 1 UM-M1
Other
Picture from old diary
Verse - computer generated with "Papyrus" font

5 comments:

Scrapmate said...

I can feel the heat coming off your page , those colours are fab and the apricots are such a sunny shade. I am finding it harder and harder to get enthused by this challenge. I am sorry to have missed meeting you at the get-together but maybe next time.

Crafty Claire said...

A fabulous page. I love the depth of colour you have created. On this damp and grey July morning it's probably the nearest I'm going to get to some sun and warmth!!

Elaine said...

Love this - brilliant how you've used the apricot as the centre piece over the flowery background!












Julia said...

Maggie, this page is inspired. I love the hot colours and the positioning of the flowers coming in from the corners. That background is delicious and finding the lovely apricot image makes it perfect for the July verse.

Mickie said...

What luck finding the apricot image! This is a lovely card and thank you for joining the Craft Barn Month Challenge xx