In the Garden

Lately I've been drawn to Basic Grey papers. I've liked them all along and had picked up pages whenever I liked one. Last Christmas my step-daughter Annie gave me a couple pads of BG collections and that got me to start looking at the collections as wholes. A couple weeks ago I did a search on Basic Grey (I've since forgotten the reason why) and found their challenge page. They had been on hiatus and now are resuming the Basic Grey Challenge on a bi-weekly basis with this first new one being a sketch challenge. The other criteria is to use a Basic Grey product in your project. I wanted to combine a few challenges so I picked a theme challenge next. The Allsorts Challenge Week 14 theme is "In an English Country Garden". The Pink Elephant Challenge #28 is also a theme - "Summer" which is the time that people in my area do the most gardening. It's New Jersey it's an unwritten law that if you have more than 5 square feet of dirt in your your yard you have to plant a tomato, at least one summer of your life. There's nothing like a home grown tomato.
Once I had my theme I needed to pick out a stamp to use. I chose the Stampin' Up Set "Garden Pleasures". Then I needed to pick the colors and papers. So I went to the Color Throwdown to see the choices for this week which were Dusty Durango, Soft Suede and Bermuda Bay. These are from the new in colors from Stampin' Up, which I don't have but my SU demonstrator had given me chips of the new colors and I used them to see if I had a Basic Gray paper collection that had those colors and would go with the rest of the my choices. Luckily the Phoebe collection fits that bill. So I started to work on my card. I stamped the images on white card stock with Stampin' Up Basic gray ink. Then I colored the hat in with copic markers, re-stamped the bird, and colored that one in and cut it out. I brushed the edges of all the papers with Close to My Heart Desert Sand and then distressed the edges. I popped the bird up on a dimensional and put a mini brad in the image where there was a nail to look like the hat was hanging. I mounted the sentiment onto one of the tags that came with the paper collection and hung it from a brad near the watering can. I assembled the layers and when I put the ribbon on I realized there was one more challenge I had looked at that I could combine, the ABC Challenge this week is "B is for Buttons" and I tied a button onto the ribbon.
If you can't make out the sentiment it says "one is never closer to God than in a garden". I think that may be true with the possible exception of my crafting space. I think that's where I get close to God.
Thanks for looking at my card. If you have a minute leave me some feedback and before you go, click on the pink ribbon to help fund mammograms. It won't cost you a penny and it will help someone who needs it. Thanks so much for visiting.