Sunday, August 5, 2012

August Beautiful World Tour

Hello Everyone and welcome to the first Flourishes Beautiful World Tour!!! Those of you who have been following Flourishes for a while will know that the first Monday of the month used to be the Bring Back Beautiful Challenge. As we celebrate Flourishes' 5th Birthday, there have been some changes and one of those is our team! No longer are we a challenge team, instead we FOUR new members to the team - Sasha, Dina, Anne-Elise and Meredith - (WELCOME girls, we are excited to have you join us!!) and each month, travel the world with us and be inspired by talented girls from all parts of the globe!!! We are now represented by Australia, United States, Canada, Finland, England and Germany and each month one of the girls will be hosting the hop on the Flourishes blog, sharing a little about their creation and maybe even a little about their corner of the world!

So.....what does this mean for YOU?? Instead of being challenged to create and play along, all we ask is you do a little globetrotting and stamp our passports (leave us a comment) and you could WIN A FREE FLOURISHES STAMP SET!!!! Yes, you heard right, leave a comment and have the chance to win!! The catch is, you don't know which country is going to be this week's vacation spot (chosen blog) so leave a comment on each one by AUGUST 31st for your chance to win!!

If you've jetted in from Australia from Iwona's blog then you have arrived at the right destination. If you haven't, perhaps you'd like to start your journey back in Florida at the Flourishes Blog so you don't miss any of the inspiration along the way!!

This month, the hostess is Kathy in Australia and she asked that we create something inspired by a song!

Maybe it had something to do with the live reggae music I could hear from the park across the street from my place, but, I was inspired by the Bob Marley song, Three Little Birds (every little thing is gonna be alright).  It definitely isn't a Canadian song but, with the sun shining here in the Vancouver, Canada area, I was reminded of the carefree summers I had as a child.  Summer seemed endless back then, and I don't even know how many days we spent down at the lake, fishing off the wharf.  

Here is what I created:
I used the Sweet Days of Summer stamp set by Flourishes stamping it in dark grey ink.  This set is FULL of beautiful silhouette images and  I just love this peaceful image of a little boy fishing at the lake.  The patterned papers are from the MME Lost & Found Two - Breeze 6x6 Paper Pad.  I stitched the two pieces together using my Janome Sew Mini.  The main image was cut out using Spellbinders Classic Ovals and the mat was cut out using Spellbinders Labels 18.  The die-cuts were sponged with Tim Holtz Distress ink in Tumbled Glass.  It was a bit too bright, so, I sponged over-top of that with Tim Holtz Distress ink in Old Paper which muted the colour a bit.  Finally, I embellished with a couple of vintage buttons and some twine.

Well, I hope you enjoyed your last stop at Beautiful British Columbia, Canada....now, it's time for you to head on back to the Flourishes Blog.

Happy Travels!