Oriental flavour

I've been a bit quiet of late mainly because my internet connection decided to impersonate a yo-yo and has been bouncing up and down for a few days, but touching wood, and fingers crossed it appears to be stable again. I have been busy catching up and when I saw this picture at http://foryourinspirationchallenges.blogspot.com I knew exactly what to do.

The image just screamed Japanese garden to me. The wonderful rich oranges and yellows of the Acer trees immediately made me think of some toppers I have had in my stash for at least a year, they are by Kaban and I went searching and found them there were three so the most difficult choice was which to use.

I used a black base card and in the absence of suitably coloured backing paper I used white card with a Chinese characters on it and gave it a colour wash of 'Wild Honey' distress ink to get the right colour.

 I also coloured some plain white paper using the 'wild honey' ink and promarkers in bright orange, and spice before cutting out circles and ripping them into rough spirals to form the three roses, The leaves were again cut from white paper which this time had been coloured using 'Peeled Paint' distress ink.

The large leaves which form the backing for the embellishment started life as plain brown skeleton leaves which I dabbed with dew drop brilliance 'copper' ink and then coated with Papermania enchanted gold embossing powder and heated them to melt the powder, to give the metallic sheen. The pins I made myself from old beads collected from Charity shop Jewellery buys, and I finished the card by adding the sentiment which is from the Tim Holtz adage labels range, and the bows and buttons from my stash.

I am entering this card in the following challenges.

http://foryourinspirationchallenges.blogspot.com inspiration photograph
http://paperplaychallenges.blogspot.com - ribbons every which way
http://lilredwagon.blogspot.com - 2 different ribbons
http://craftycatzweeklychallenge.blogspot.com - buttons and bows