Sponged meadow scene

I live in the heart of England in the Buckinghamshire countryside where there's nothing particularly dramatic about the landscape, but I love it. It inspires me when I make one of my favourite kinds of card - a sponged scene.

It's very therapeutic to take a piece of card stock, a selection of inks and stamps and some bits of sponges and build up your own little nature reserve! I find that paying particular attention to sponging the edges of the card stock defines the panel nicely and I usually mount it directly onto the card base with no matting required.

Here's a close-up to show the effect I got with a piece of rough, massage-style sponge - I was rather pleased with it! I adore my plant stamps - I've used Autumn Days, Pocket Silhouettes and Just Believe here. The sentiment (from Just Believe) was stamped in Real Red to make it really pop against the sky.

A piece of linen thread is the perfect simple, rustic embellishment for this kind of card. I like to mount my scenes on neutral card stock. The Crumb Cake I've used here is ideal and I love the effect of sponging the edges of the card base with Whisper White craft ink. This card would be fine for males and females although I'd probably knot the thread if I were sending it to a man.

Here's how to make this card:

• Take an A5 piece of Crumb Cake card stock. Score and fold it in half. Sponge the edges with Whisper White craft ink and set aside to dry.
• Cut an 8cm square piece of Whisper White card stock. Roughly sponge Bashful Blue ink over the top half, to create a cloudy sky, and sponge Certainly Celery ink over the bottom half to form the base of the grasses. Allow the ink to define the edges of the card stock.
• Now build up the plants: I used the grassy image from Just Believe and an Old Olive marker as the basis for my meadow. Next I stamped seed heads from Pocket Silhouettes in Always Artichoke ink and added taller grasses from Autumn Days using Soft Suede ink.
• Sponge Soft Suede ink round the edges of the meadow part of the card stock to give more definition.
• Tie a piece of linen thread round the scene.
• Mount the panel onto the card front.

Supplies
Stamps: Autumn Days, Pocket Silhouettes, Just Believe
Ink: Bashful Blue,  Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke, Soft Suede, Whisper White craft ink
Card stock: Crumb Cake, Whisper White
Other: Linen thread, Old Olive marker

Now, if you were reading yesterday's post, you may have been haunted by my son's underpants! You'll be glad to know I've now got to the bottom of it (oh no! did you see what I did there!) Why did he thank heaven for underwear? Well, this morning he explained that sometimes you look in your wardrobe and can't really think what to wear, but a pair of underpants is easy to pull on and enables you to wander about round the house while preserving your modesty. So, it seems, where we would choose the little black dress, my son would select the underpant! Where oh where have I gone wrong?!!!

Good gracious - it's Three Minute Thursday tomorrow! (Does anyone else feel that life is galloping away with them?) I'll have something very quick but very effective for you so do drop by then.

Have a lovely day,