Life's a Garden! Magpie's #3UP

Readers of my Magpieheaven blog probably know how it was thanks to Paper Artsy and their amazing collection of stamps plus the suggestion of Leandra @ PA to start blogging that opened up the wonderful world of Craft Blogging to me! Well, all this week, over at Paper Artsy's blog the fun and energy have been boundless as Paper Artsy fans have taken up the challenge and played #3UP.  This is a challenge to create something using a substrate, some embellishments, a colour scheme and - of course - some wonderful Paper Artsy Stamps sent out in a little mystery pack to those joining in the game! When I first started blogging the first #3UP challenge just blew me away and when I heard there was to be another to mark Paper Artsy's tenth birthday, I signed up to be part of the fun. When my pack arrived I could hardly contain my excitement, especially as it contained not one but two plates of stamps from the Hot Picks family! Hot Picks, Ink and the Dog and Lynne Perrella have always been my first choice of Paper Artsy stamps!

I was sent some thick Smoothy card,  a pack of fabric flowers, cream ribbon, green ribbon and two spools. My stamps were HP1006 and HP 1009. I did already have HP 1006, but that was nice, as it meant that I could work with stamps I know and love! My colour swatch was cream, green and purple! Now here I didn't feel quite so comfortable. I love green, but purple is not a colour that I've used much so far in my crafting. I have to say that incorporating it into this #3UP challenge has started me on  a new love affair with this colour, though. The Frescos I used on my project in the end were Gaucamole, Eggplant, Snowflake and Tinned Peas. After a couple of days ruminating and turning my substrate round and round, an idea came all in a flash! I love my garden, so why not turn my substrate into a lawn with die-cut fence. Instead of making my spools into feet, which initially seemed the logical way to use them, they could become planters and those fabric flowers could be growing in one, while I used the other to hold an incense stick. My substrate would have a use as a decorative incense holder.

 In addition to the contents of Leandra's pack I used a tiny toadstool embellishment, which I coloured with Eggplant and Guacamole and I embossed the butterflies from 1006 with Verdi-gris and black sparkly embossing powders, adding antennae  from my stash and four decorative corners, which I rubbed with Green Amber Treasure Gold.  I also had a go at making my own beads from the pages of magazines, cut into long pennant shapes, rolled around cocktail sticks and then embossed and attached to green wires to form grasses or bull-rushes.

 I love the collage flower on HP 1009 so I added two more from my own Hot Pick Extra 02 Flowers stamped onto Shrink Plastic with Black Archival and coloured with green alcohol ink along with some punched out leaves.

Here is my garden with an incense stick in place - I liked the pattern on the back of my swatch so much I used it to back the stamped sign so here is a back view!

Thank you so much Paper Artsy for giving me the opportunity to join in with this fun birthday challenge and here's wishing you decades and decades more of success!