Orchid Birthday Card and WOYWW

I love orchids but real ones aren't for me - I can kill pretty much any house plant you care to name, but we have a cousin who has a beautiful collection of real ones and they seem to be always in bloom whenever we visit, so for her birthday card I dug out a never-used orchid die - I've had it for a while and I knew I'd need it one day!  
I kept the design simple with just a silver embossed border stamp so there was nothing to really compete with the ornate flowers.

So as you can see absolutely no Christmas cards made yet and not even a feeling of panic rising up in me either - I'm sure it will kick in soon!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.

Loving Ginkgo Leaves and WOYWW

It's that time of year again - time to gather up stray leaves that have fallen from a neighbours beautiful Ginkgo tree and press them for future projects! There's something so appealing about the shape of a Ginkgo leaf.  However they are rather delicate to work with so I needed a Ginkgo leaf die too! This one also embosses the leaf with veins but I've managed to completely erase them with my enthusiastic layering of crackle paste, glossy accents, antiquing cream and Metallic Lustre! 

They are both on MDF bases and the blue one is going to be the sturdy cover of a small journal I'm planning on making.  I had two ideas swimming around in my head so had to try both out - I think the blue one wins!

Happy mistakes - I accidentally dripped some dirty paint water onto the little pipe stems and I rather like the resulting splodges so I added more to both stems and leaves!

I'm linking up with Julia over at WOYWW this week.