Inspiration Challenge #19: Zen jewelry

Until tonight I had no real idea what this week's challenge was going to be. Really, none. And then I went to my class, and we were handed a packet of materials to help us keep going with our mindfulness practices. And in the packet was a catalog, and in the catalog was some jewelry that just captivated me, and I knew I had my inspiration. You can find out more about the jewelry here. If you click on the link to the bamboo jewelry, you can see more from the same artist, and if that one inspires you, go for it. But the plum blossom necklace was what especially caught my eye.

This was a card that didn't come easy. I started over several times before I was happy with the way it was headed.

I wanted an Asian image I could watercolor, so I chose this stamp from Artfully Asian. I stamped the flowers (are they cherry blossoms? close enough!) with jet black Stazon on watercolor paper and colored with my Aqua Painter and watercolor crayons. To get a really rich red I colored the flower centers with burgundy crayon then touched my Aqua Painter brush onto the red crayon and filled the flowers in. I used just a bit of garden green for the leaves.

I wanted to have some element of a circle on the card, so I punched out some of the flowers and a not quite navy layer with my largest Marvy punches. Then to add some more embellishment and color, I chose some white and red Prima flowers. They are held together with red DCWV brads that match perfectly and adhered with glue dots.

For one last touch I used the horizontal slot punch in the upper right corner and threaded through some gorgeous, deep red ribbon. I don't know who made it or where I got it, sorry! The background is bordering blue stamped with the same image in bordering blue ink, using generation stamping. The sentiment from Art Impressions is stamped in not quite navy on top of some of the lighter flowers. I layered it onto a not quite navy panel and a white card.

I hope you'll play along this week, and if you do, please leave a comment here with a link to your creation so that everyone can see! If you upload to SCS the keyword this week is DSIC19. Thanks for stopping by today!