Happy September!

 Hello, and White Rabbits to you all!
Wow, September already, how on earth did that happen?  I'm hoping for a sunny and warm September to ward off thoughts of what's just around the corner.
I have absolutely no idea where the tradition of  'White Rabbits' being the first thing you say on the first day of a new month comes from.....

Anyway, the first Friday of the month is Elemental Inspiration Challenge day over on The Daring Cardmakers and this time it was my turn to choose the picture.  I hope you like the mood board I found, its so darned pretty, and every time I look I see things I didn't notice last time.  

It was probably that beautiful old doorway that attracted me to this picture.  I do love a beautiful, run down old doorway or gateway and have zillions of photos to prove it as I can't go past without taking a picture!  

To make the doorway

I started by making a template for the door shape, so that I got the right shape and size to use on my card, and to draw around for the doorway

Next I used lots of inks to build up the colours on another piece of card.  I chose the bit I liked best and embossed this part before cutting out the door shape using the template, but leaving a bit of a margin all around..

To make the stonework for the doorway I used some hammered white card, adding just a little cream, beige-brown and pale grey inks wiped over with pieces of old baby wipe to make a mottled effect, then I just hand cut all the stones from this  I drew around the door template on another piece of card to use as a guide for sticking the stones down.  I cut around the doorway shape, inked around the whole piece in black, then added a layer of chipboard to the back.

Before sticking the door itself to the back, I sliced up the middle and cut a wiggly, broken wood sort of effect to the lower edge and again inked the edges with black

 I made the background using Gelatos, water-colour style, then then  cut a rectangle from the middle of a piece of card and used that to stencil a tiled pattern in the corner with ink.  I thought I had a herringbone kind of stencil in my collection, but apparently I don't so I had to improvise!

I inked around the card blank using deeper shades of the same colours as the background square. I added a square of blue-grey card, then my Gelatos piece

At this point I glued my doorway in place and realised that there was something missing, it looked unfinished.  So I used another element from the picture and added some handmade flowers.  Which are made from tiny die cuts and took flipping ages!.  The pots are just hand cut from pale grey card and inked with a couple of shades of blue ink

The sentiment was pc generated and double-matted before glueing in place.

Info:

Smooth White card, Hammered White card, Thin white card for flowers, 2 shades of grey card, scraps of green card

Lots of Ink

Gelatos

Distressed Stripes Embossing Folder (Cuttlebug)

Smaller flower shapes from Cherry Blossoms Shapeabilities Etched Dies
(Spellbinders)

That's it for me today, I hope you'll pop over and see what the team have made this week - the BLOG looks so lovely - and we have a fabulous new Guest Designer on board this month, so you can find out who that is while you're there!  
I would love to hear what you think of this card, so please leave a comment....Oh, and don't forget I've blog candy to give away - check the post above for more info