there are always flowers for those who want to see them - henri matisse

I feel like I should have better prepared to for this once in a lifetime moment .. it's my 100th post! .. how does one celebrate a 100th blog post milestone?  I think I'll get a green tea frappuccino.  Mmm.  Now you know my weakness.  Use it wisely grasshopper.

And I will also celebrate my 100th blog post by entering my not so perfect photo layout in the mid-August picture this! challenge.

This was a really fun layout to put together and I had tremendous inspiration watching donna downey's design team create gorgeous art pieces with her new stencils.  

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I first chose the photo for this layout.  Yes, it is a photo of me around the age of 2 or 3 taking time to enjoy life and smell the flowers even though those flowers were not, um, authentic.  A few years ago I "borrowed" a bunch of my mom's photo albums as I readied myself for a milestone birthday (40) and came across this great shot.  Yes, it is blown out.  Yes, the flower makes me look like I have a horn on my nose (thank you monkey muse for pointing that out).  And yes, the quality of the photo is terrible.  But it is, and has been, one of my favourite photos of all time.  I cannot explain.  It just is.

And, as I mentioned, based on this photo I pulled out donna downey's flowers in vase #1, applied some modeling paste and added some delicious creamy colour with gelatos.  The flowers turned out great.  The vase, not as much.  Here's a tip.  If you want crackle paste to crackle do not add acrylic paint to it until it dries and crackles.  And then do not add acrylic paint to it after it has dried and crackled.  Use something else.  

The photo may not be perfect.  The memory may be blurry.  The sentiment is the same.  Enjoy every moment and take time in life to get messy.

hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers - robert green ingersoll

I love using faber-castell gelatos to create a watercolour palette.  It's easy to get depth and subtle colour transitions when using rich and creamy gelatos.

I stamped tim holtz flower garden onto watercolour paper in white permanent ink and white embossed the images to give them definition.  I used watermelon, metallic melon and bubble gum gelatos to fill in each of the flowers.  The background is a boxed card set that I bought at michaels.  These boxed card and envelope sets (I'm sure you've seen them - huge boxes of cards and envelopes) really help out when you need to create a whole bunch of cards at once in a jiffy.  Especially when you're like me and love creating multi-layered cards but have a limited amount of time.

Here's a closer look at the watercoloured flowers.  There are a few ways to use gelatos to get different results; my favourite, hands down, is this technique: take your gelato, smash a bit of the tip onto your craft mat, dip your paintbrush into water and mix it with the gelato colour.  Like all watercolours, the more water you use the lighter the colour, the less water you use the darker the colour.  Try layering different colours onto an image and then go back (it doesn't need to be perfectly dry; gelatos on watercolour paper dries really quickly anyway - if you haven't used a ton of water) and add more colour with less water.  You'll find that the colour depth you can create is phenomenal.  And it's so much fun.

Get messy.  Have fun.  See you back here soon.