Peruvian Lilies, Stampendous and FSC #47 - all in My Garden Journal

Re-edited - yay! My garden journal is one of the Spotlights at City Crafter Challenge Blog!

Happy (Inter)National Scrapbooking Day to all my crafty friends! I hope I'll get a chance to celebrate it with some crafting but first I'd like to share what I have been up to this week.

Before I tell you about my new project, here's heads up that a new Fashionable Stamping Challenge is officially open! And the theme this fortnight could not be better as this time Anything goes! All the Fashionettes have prepared a real eye candy inspiration for you so be sure to check all the beautiful samples.

Those who know me personally would certify that my garden has always been a kind of a project that gets put off forever... But not this year! We've finally got our new patio sorted and we're now ready to plan & plant the borders. Yay! It only took us 6 years to gear up for it so not too long really lol :).

No surprises then that I wanted to seize the opportunity to 'document' how our garden grows. That's why I started my very own garden journal, where I can clip plant labels, photos and play with creative journaling at the same time.

In keeping with the 'nature friendly theme' I've decided to up-cycle an old diary for that purpose. To kick start my creative gardening adventure I decorated the cover using my old time fave technique - decoupaging with napkins. This technique was perfect for this project as my cover was quite squishy and leather like, so covering it with paper would not be as successful.

For my project I used some really gorgeous Stampendous stamps from the new April release. I had a real trouble deciding which ones to choose as this release is full of real gems. But I finally decided on the Jumbo Cling Peruvian Lily set which I stamped onto the front cover with clear embossing ink. Then I heat embossed them with Detail Gold Embossing Powder from Stampendous.

To add dimension to my flowers I stamped the lilies again onto white card, heat embossed them with Black Detail Powder and cut them out. All my colouring was done with Inktense pencils.

Then I layered all my embellishments and lace. I also added fabric flowers from Prima and wooden embellishments from Crafty Emblies, which altered with Shabby Blue and Shabby Pink embossing enamels. To do that you simply swipe the Boss Gloss over, sprinkle the powders, tap off the excess and heat with the heat gun.

I also added one of my shabby enamelled flowers. To adhere my embellishments I used Beacon's 3in1 Advanced Craft Glue.

I decorate the flower centres with gems, Champagne and Fuchsia crushed glass glitter, sprinkled over Beacon's 3in1 adhesive.

Now, my garden journal could not be left without a proper country cottage bunting :). So I stamped in black the word 'garden' onto white vellum with Stampendous Big Top Type clear stamps and cut out the flags. Then I stamped the word 'journal' directly onto the journal cover with Vintage Lowercase clear stamps.

To finish my cover I added final touches with embossing the edges with Shabby Blue enamel.

I've also prepared a full step-by-step tutorial on this project which you will soon be able to see on Stampendous blog. In case you're worried you might miss it, just subscribe to the updates here :).

Over to you now - share your lovely stamped projects with us here.

Thank you so much for visiting today and for your lovely comments. Have a fabulous crafty weekend!

Big hugs



Challenges for this project:
Country View Crafts Challenge #3 - How does your garden grow
Top Tip Tuesday #100 - Moving parts (bunting flags)
Sugar Creek Hollow #60 - Spring Flowers
Our Creative Corner #1 - Anything goes
Whimsy Stamps Challenges #24 - Pretty in pink
City Crafter Challenge Blog #157 - Spring has sprung (inspiration photo below)

The Shabby Tea Room #164 - Beautiful Spring (inspiration photo below)

Creative Cauldron supplies for UK crafters: