Patchwork wild flowers

Hello, crafting friends!

Ok, so Eva and I haven't melted but it was touch and go there for a minute. Luckily a massive thunderstorm cleared the air yesterday evening and, as we no longer felt as if we were being boiled in oil, we were able to go off on a refreshing walkies! While we were out in the countryside, I admired all the wild flowers which seem to survive in the most inhospitable of conditions. When we returned I made this card: 

Look! I'm using the Spellbinders Optical Illusion dies I won at The Snippets Playground again! I can see that this set of dies is going to be out on my desk permanently! 

I started the card by cutting a hexagonal window in a card panel. I wanted a design to show in my hexagonal window, so I masked off the top and right hand side of a card base, sponged the area inside with SU Pool Party ink and stamped over it in navy with a leaf stamp from Funky Fossil's In The Meadow stamp set. When I attached the card panel over the top with dimensionals, it gave a shadow box effect.

The solid hexagon from the aperture wasn't wasted! I sponged it with SU Melon Mambo ink and stamped it with a sentiment from Thoughtful Blooms, a free stamp set from Stampin' Up during this year's Sale-a-bration. I also cut a hexagon out of a snippet of yellow designer paper. These hexagons were glued to the card panel alongside the aperture, patchwork styyle. 

Finally, I stamped wild flowers from the Funky Fossil set, using markers to ink them up. These were fussy cut, tied together with a piece of bakers twine and used to embellish the card along with an enamel dot.

EDITED TO ADD AN AWARD

This card was show-cased at Less is More!

CHALLENGES

I'm linking up again with CAS on Friday's Nature themed challenge and Just Us Girls' Die-cut A Window challenge. The sketch is a beauty from CAS Colours and Sketches and those fab colours were dreamed up by Joanne at The Paper Players. Less is More have a Summer Flowers theme, so I'll play along there and since everything on this card used left-overs except the card panel, I shall pop over to The Snippets Playground too.

AND IN OTHER NEWS

The temperatures have dropped considerably after the thunderstorms. We woke up this morning to overcast skies and drizzle - perfect weather for a golden retriever (they were originally bred in the highlands of Scotland.)

We had a long walk this morning and when we got back, Eva still had the energy to raid the laundry basket, play 'Toss Mummy's Wet Shoe About' and drag the towel I'd used to dry her off the radiator. She spent a pleasurable ten minutes burrowing about in it while making fierce noises, presumably pretending it was a rabbit hole. After that she was pretty well exhausted!

Sending hugs,