The view from the garden wall (by Lesley)

Hi everyone, today I am actually posting one of my own pieces of artwork. Seems ages since I was let loose on here! Anyway, this one was designed for the TV show when the stamp launched last month and I made it to demonstrate a couple of new techniques. Bit of a long one, so maybe you need to pull up the chair.

• To create the sky take a piece of 300gsm white cardstock, cut to 5" square. Tap three colours of distress inkpad on to an acrylic block, I used Barn Door, Fossilized Amber and Spiced Marmalade. Spritz with water and then drag the block along the top half of the card.
• For the grass clean the block and repeat the same exercise using Crushed Olive, Bundled Sage and Mustard Seed.  If you want a less 'yellow green' grass then leave out the Mustard Seed. Again spritz with water and drag along the bottom half of the card, allowing the colours to slight overlap the sky.  Set aside to dry thoughly.
• Stamp the Walled Garden on to a self adhesive label with Jet Black Archival ink and colour with Distress inks and a water brush. When dry, cut out. TIP: Don't worry about the trailing rose stems on the top of the wall, you can draw these back in later.
• Peel the backing off the label and position on the background, then trim around the edges.
• To create the walled effect take another piece of 300gsm white card, approx 5" square, an old credit card and Vintage Sepia Versafine ink. Run the long edge of the card through the inkpad and then 'stamp' random lines horizontally across the white card. Keeping reinking the credit card and continue until you have covered in one direction (side to side).
• Now repeat, this time stamping vertically between the horizontal lines. You want this criss-cross stamping to resemble bricks. It doesn't matter if it is uneven. Sponge Old Paper Distress ink around the edges of the card to give an aged appearance.
• To distress around the edge of the card use either a distress tool or run a pair of scissor blades backwards and forwards over each edge to rough up the cardstock.
• To assemble, glue the background to the faux wall and then attach to a 5.5" square blank Kraft card.
• Finally draw back in the trailing rose branches using a black fineliner pen.

I love 'painting' with an acrylic block and of course if you change the colour combinations you can have a winter or a pale summer sky, brilliant green fields or something a little more subdued. Best of all you will always 'paint' a unique background since the inks on the block will spread out on the card differently each time you do it. I hope you will try these techniques and create your own view from the garden wall.

Thanks for dropping by and please call again soon for more beautiful creations from our fabulous team.