My Happy Place and Creating my own background with my new Unity Stamps!

Today it is wet miserable and cold so it was the perfect day to be inside crafting and the perfect time to be thinking about my Happy Place which is one of the 365 Cards  Blog Challenges this week.

A bit less than 2 months ago we moved out of town to a one and a half acre property which has lovely views over the hills and countryside as well as beautiful gardens.  So my happy place in our new home is sitting outside in our outdoor area with a coffee and just taking in the beauty of nature that surrounds us.   So using our new garden as my starting inspiration today I than wanted to play along with both the My Happy Place Challenge on 365 Cards, and the Make Your Own Background Challenge which is over on the My Unity Place Forum.

There are some beautiful flowers in our garden at the moment.  On one side of the property we have a soft pink camilla hedge which is currently in full bloom.  The softness and lack of uniformity in their petals kind of reminded me of the patterned flower images in my new Unity May Kit of the Month Stamp Set, so I just knew I wanted to reach for this stamp to create my own background,.

I stamped the image randomly in alternating tones of brown and then coloured in with soft pastel like colours.  I water coloured in the white space with yellow.  On part of this piece I than stamped the larger flower in a darker brown and cut it out to use as my embellishment.  I layered this onto the same flower stamped in the dark brown onto a piece of pink cardstock.

To create my background panel for the card I cut a piece to size and than proceeded to fold and scrunch up my design and than flatten back out.  To this I spritzed with a little water and than smooched with a Pearlscent Olive Ink.  Finally I ran this through my Big Shot with an embossing folder to have gain a debossed surface on my design piece.   A spellbinder cut scallop circle was than stamped with the circle frame and sentiment.  My pieces were than layered onto the pink cardstock panel and brown base card and than the ribbon and Antique Brad were added to finish.