Traps, Treasures, and Secret Doors!

Pin It Now! Having watched the 2001 sequel to Secret Garden, The Return to the Secret Garden recently.  I've had floating around in the ole brain pan the thought that my current Journal, Secret Garden needs to have a secret door.  Also, being slightly addicted to Pinerest (first stage is denial, right?!) I've seen that there are a few cards being made now that use an embossing resist for the central design.  When I started this layout those two thoughts were forefront. I started out by stamping the branch and leaf pattern then embossing with clear powder.  I then took the same stamp and using Mowed Grass Distress Ink stamped again.  I used my heat tool to dry it a little bit and lightly wiped off the ink from the embossed surface. I then stamped the Lock and Key.  I had the butterflies floating on my desk so I transferred them using gel medium.  The embossed surface also resisted the transfer so the butterflies look like they are behind the branches.  Very cool!!!

That green really needed additional color and I've had these Prima flowers in my stash for quite a while so I starting gluing them down.  The larger flowers I used brads to secure and then glued to the page.  After all my elements were down I drew the framework of the door around them, which you can see in the photo below.

I took out my Prometheus Pen and Black Magic and inked in the door frame.  I couldn't help adding the tiny red bird to the foliage.  I'm currently debating on whether or not to paint the door a different color or leave it as is. hmm...