Hi Everyone. Happy Monday.
I hope you all had a fabulous weekend. I did 🙂 I got to spend a little time on Saturday in my craft room playing with my new Gelli Plate. I have never gotten onto the Gelli Plate train, but was inspired by a recent video from the amazingly talented Shari Carrol. After watching the video I realized that this was a great opportunity to use my acrylic paints and stencils – and move away from the very many cards that I have created recently which are all white…..so immediately ordered a plate.
Oh…what fun it was 🙂 There is a learning curve with it and it will definitely take some tweaking to get it right – but I used Crafter's Workshop leaf stencil and three colors of paint – and from that one plate, I managed to get three usable card bases. Below is a snapshot of the three.
I took the photo with my iPhone – and it didn't come out too well…. The top one was the first run. The bottom right was the second. Once I had pulled off the 2nd one from the gel plate, I removed the stencil and used what was left to create the third pull.
I decided to use the bottom right, but it was just TOO bright for what I wanted to do. I wanted to use it as a backdrop for the new Case This Sketch challenge
I needed the flower and the sentiment to remain a focal point. The gelli plate background as it was stood out too much. I took various Altenew beige and yellow inks and blended them over the top until I was happy with the background.
I then stamped and die-cut a single tulip from the Altenew Tulip set and paired it with a die-cut Thanks from the Halftone Thanks die-set. I mounted it to a black base and added a little twine bow to finish it off. Of course, I had to add a little sparkle and shine to the tulip head and to the sentiment with my Spectrum Noir glimmer pen 🙂
So… now for something completely different 🙂
You can still see the gelli background, but it is softer, more muted and the yellows remind me of sunshine behind the tulip. It's very different for me – but I did really enjoy making this card.
And, because I was so inspired by Shari's video, I am also entering this card into the Simon Says Stamp Craft Month linkup 🙂
On a personal note:
I thought I would share a couple of photos from our recent trip. I don't take a lot of photographs generally, and this trip was no exception. But I wanted to share a photo of one of my favorite ports – Deshaies in Guadeloupe. Oh.. how we fell in love with Deshaise! It's so green and untouched and the port is delightful. I also loved that, although there was a ship in port, the shops closed as usual at lunchtime and the town went about it's business – and that included shutting down for lunch and going home 🙂
We did manage to find a wonderful little boulangerie. Well, to be honest, Lou found it. If there is a Mille Feuille to be found anywhere within a 100 mile radius – Lou will sniff it out 🙂
So, we found ourselves sitting at this little outside cafe and, even though we didn't have human company – we did have a couple of avi-fauna company 🙂
Firstly, here's the view as we stepped off the tender:
It was so picturesque and CLEAN – amazingly clean – and green. Oh… so much wonderful green space. It was a very short walk into the center of town.
Whilst we were having coffee (me) and two custard pastries (Lou) – we were visited by this little guy. He was absolutely GORGEOUS.
It was pretty hard to capture a good shot of him, because he kept moving every time I picked up my camera, but a little bribe was greedily accepted and he responded by sitting still for enough time for me to capture the photo. What is he? He is a Lesser Antillean Bullfinch. He also had the sweetest call. His rufous feathers were so bright – and I love that he had the same color above his eyes. His black feathers are shiny… he really was gorgeous.
Then, I heard a noise behind me – and this guy decided to come for a visit – struttin' his stuff!
He was such a HANDSOME fellow and his coloring was gorgeous. hard to tell in this photo, but his tail feathers were a gorgeous shade of midnight blue.
The amazing thing about the little cafe….. there was a rooster, a hen and the little bullfinch around – but there was NO sign of them having been there. You can see from the photo of the rooster – that floor on the outside patio was spotless. The whole town was like that. Even the alleyways were clean and free of litter. At night it must be a buzzing place as there are so many restaurants and bars… but you didn't see any evidence of detritus that you would expect around so many bars and pubs.
We then took a walk along an alley way that led us down to the beach front. Lou said to me… hey, I think that's Katherine's Bar! I turned around and yes…. it certainly was Katherine's Bar. Anyone watched "Death in Paradise"? It's a British show that airs on PBS stations. I caught it one night and decided that it was worth watching and managed to get the entire series on PPV. It's a gentle murder mystery show set in the fictional town of Saint-Marie and the scenery in real-life is even more fabulous than on the TV show… Oh… and I'm guessing it's safer, too. (Considering there is a murder a week on the TV show!)
I'll leave you with one shot that I took of a part of the island that is just outside of the town…. stunning!
All that wonderful, green, pristine lushness – and the picturesque yachts in the harbor. Definitely going back there!
I'll be back tomorrow with another card. In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.
Hugs
Jaydee
Card recipe:
- Stamps: Tulip – Altenew
- Dies: Tulip – Altenew
- Stencil: Crafter's Workshop
- Inks: acrylic paints. Altenew inks for the tulip and distressing over the paints
- Spectrum Noir pen – used on the thanks and the tulip
