Spring into Spring

Time for another challenge over at

IKEsWORLD

Spring into Spring

I do love Ike's challenges, somehow here I seem to step right outside my box to create something different.  This week I used the digi Spring Fairy, a digi I have used a few times as she is just beautiful :)  So far I have only used her on cards but this time, after chatting to my sister and hearing how fed up she is with the long wet winter I had an idea.  Something else new for me, a shadow box, could I create a 3D scene for my sister to hang on her wall which, during the coming winter 2014/15 she can look at it and know Spring is not far away.  Now that sounded like fun and so I set to work.  To begin with I found a photo I had taken at Glen Coe in Scotland, a place I love and was just perfect.  Next I overlaid the digi in Photoshop, this way I can colour the digi but not have to do any fussy cutting.  Time to print :)

So here we have the Spring Fair placed on the photo background and printed ready for colouring with Promarkers.

 Here we are with the digi coloured with Promarkers.  I also added orange Stickles to the centre of each flower but forgot to take a close-up :)

Next was to make the flowers.  I used Spellbinders Bitty-Blossoms-6 and three colours of yellow paper.  After the flowers were made I dipped each one in gold Extreme Glitter for a bit of bling on the edges of the petals.

While these were drying I found some light green wrapping paper for part of the mount and also used dark green card which I embossed with the leaf Embossilicious A4 folder.

So far so good, what next?  Ah leaves for my flowers.  For these I used Spellbinders Foliage.  Once cut I used the air gun and my trusty Promakers to ad a bit of shading to them.

Next I assembled the flowers and leaves.  First I used some green wire and a glue gun to create a stem for each flower.  Then I twisted these into a few bunches.  Next I attached them to the leaves with glue dots and using a strong adhesive attached a toothpick to the back for strength.  WOW, pretty pleased with these, for a first time effort I am giving my self a pat on the back lol. Now I needed to work out how to put all this together as I am pretty much making it up as a I go along. After a good look at the shadow box I found the class front was flush on all edges so no way could I just stick the flowers and leaves onto the base.  Time to take a coffee break and hunt the house for something I could use to place the flowers stems onto.  Ahhhh - brilliant, an old bedding plant box.  Out with the craft knife and slice a bit off, this should work but it is going to be a bit of trial and error.  I coloured the nasty squeaky polystyrene with Olive Green Promarker but that was no good.  Then I remembered I had this strange mossy stuff I had picked up somewhere, I think it is for model railway making.  The polystyrene pieces were covered in UHU and lots of the mossy stuff put on.  Once dry I attacked this with a green Promarker, bit of a waste of time as it did not make much difference to any of the colour lol.  By now I was in a real mess, glue, green, moss fiber everywhere, all over the craft table and all over me too hahahaha

The end result was worth it all and I did have lots of fun.  Here we have the two completed rose bushes ready to go into the shadow box.

I added more UHU and moss to the white ledge area of the box and the two rose bushes, one at either side.  The wrapping paper was glued to the back board of the frame and the green embossed mount next.  Finally the scene was put in place and this was then put in position on the shadow box.  Finished - time to turn it over and have a look at the end result :)

I hope you like it big sis and it helps towards seeing Spring during the Winter :) :) :)

Ingredients:-

• Digi - Spring Fairy by IKE'sART
• Shadow Box from IKEA
• Promarkers - Olive Green, Moss, Marsh Green, Gold Lemon, Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Sandstone.  Flex Markers:- Cinnamon, Dusky Pink, Blush and Linen
• Dies - Spellbinders Bitty Blossom 6 and Foliage
• Stickles, Extremem Glitter, cocktail sticks, moss stuff and wire from my stash.

I am entering this project into the following challenges:-

• All Crafts Challenge - 2M, 1st Monday of the month every other month, NO CARDS - (February/March) Anything but a Card
• Crafty Bloggers Network - M, SIO - (March) Nature
• Lexi's Creations - 2W - (Week 2) Punches & Dies
• Stamp and Create - M, 1E/week - (March) Ready for Spring
• The Crazy Challenge - 2W, 4E - (Week 2) Flower Frenzy
• Come and Get It Challenges - W, Unlimited - Easter/Spring.
• Craft a Scene - M, 3E, must include a Scene - March Challenge (4th Week) Let it be Spring.
• Great Impressions - M, 3E, SIO - (March) (4th Week) Spring Celebrations.
• Robyn`s Fetish - W -CHALLENGE # 204- Anything but a card.
• Ladybug Crafts - M, P1, 3E  Spring is here
• Color Me Creative Challenge -2W, 3E - #89 (W2 of 2)  Show some skin
• Hiding in my Craft Room - W, 1E  - #142  Lets get Digital Digital
• Stampin With The Dragon - 2W, SIO – (W2 of 2) - Let's Go GREEN
• Add a Little Dazzle - W, SIO - #17 Frames/anything goes
• Divas by Design - 2E - Flowers
• Paper Shelter Challenge -3E, SIO - #150 More than 5 flowers