Lovely Layers: Herb Garden

~ Christina

Hello! Today I’m sharing my latest Honey Bee Stamps Lovely Layers project, featuring the newer Herb Garden set. I decided to pair my herbs with the Barn Wood Fence to create this vibrant garden scene, and I couldn’t be happier with how this card turned out.

All of the dies are, of course, highly detailed, with lots of debossing and strategic layering pieces, but I did a few things to make these layers really come to life. First, I applied Distress Inks, and then more Distress Inks, and then finally some Distress Oxide Inks too. I think I used 22 different ink colors! To apply the ink, I used a combination of small detail blending brushes as well as a sea sponge. The sea sponge provides some extra texture and interesting color variation. Obviously, I’m doing my best to emulate Dawn over at Wplus9 who is the master of creating amazingly realistic Lovely Layers 😍

Next, for some dramatic dimension, I slightly rounded the metal buckets before attaching them with foam squares, and then wove the lush herbs around the distressed gold metal signs. Lastly, I decided that my design still needed a little something, so I added small purple flowers vining their way behind and through the fence. And this fence is big-really big. To fit an A2 card design, I trimmed the middle portion down a bit, gluing the bottom beam across the cut line to disguise it.

To finish things up, I added sentiments from Hero Arts that I thought went well with the design and distressed the edges of my card panels a bit so they didn’t look so crisp and clean.

I hope you like the finished card as much as I do. You can find more details listed below, including all the Distress Ink colors I used 😆
Thanks for stopping by today!

STEPS


1.) Die cut, ink, and assemble the fence.
▪️ Die cut all the elements for the fence from heavy-weight white cardstock.
▪️ Use a sticky mat to hold the die cut pieces while applying ink to the fence pieces. Start with swiping some ink colors directly to the pieces with the ink pads, creating striations. Use blending brushes to apply more layers of ink, beginning with lighter colors and gradually blending in the darker colors. Concentrate the darkest colors to the areas where shadows would naturally fall; under the cross beams, in the corners of the fence joints, and along the edges.
▪️ Shorten the middle slats by cutting across the bottom, along the line where the bottom beam will be attached, separating the bottom slats from the rest of the piece. Move the bottom piece up about 1/2″ and glue in place.
▪️ Attach the cross beams with liquid adhesive.
2.) Die cut, ink, and assemble the herbs.
▪️ Die cut all the elements for the herbs from heavy-weight white cardstock. Die cut the herbs two or three times.
▪️ Die cut the herb signs from matte gold cardstock too, and stack with the white cardstock signs for sturdiness, securing them with liquid adhesive.
▪️ Use a sticky mat to hold the die cut pieces while applying Oxide Inks to the matte gold signs with a sea sponge for a distressed look. All colors listed below.
▪️ Apply Distress Inks to the herb layers, starting with lighter colors and gradually adding darker colors with a combination of detail blending brushes and a sea sponge. For color variation, I used true greens for the basil, gray-greens for the thyme, yellow-greens for the parsley, and blue-greens for the mint.
▪️ Add Oxide Inks to all the herbs with a sea sponge, using darker and lighter colors and changing color families until the desired result is reached.
▪️ Assemble the layering pieces of the herbs and secure with liquid adhesive.
3.) Die cut, ink, and assemble the buckets.
▪️ Die cut all the elements for the buckets from heavy-weight white cardstock. I chose not to use the twine piece meant to wrap around the buckets.
▪️ Use a sticky mat to hold the die cut pieces while applying Distress Inks with a combination of detail blending brushes and a sea sponge. Start with the lighter colors and concentrate the darker colors along the edges.
▪️ Lightly splatter the metal bucket pieces with clean water after applying ink to help with the look of aged, oxidized metal.
▪️ Assemble the bucket pieces and secure with liquid adhesive.
▪️ Gently bend the assembled and dried buckets around the handle of a paintbrush or other tool to round the pieces slightly.
4.) Die cut, ink, and assemble the vining flowers.
▪️ Die cut the vines and flowers multiple times. The “vine” is from the Lovely Layers: Nest and the flowers are from a Spellbinders set.
▪️ Use a sticky mat to hold the die cut pieces while applying Distress Inks with a detail brush.
▪️ I used a Copic marker for the flower centers and glued them to the flowers.
5.) Create the background.
▪️ Use Distress Inks to blend a sky and grassy area on an A2 white cardstock panel. Blend the sky on the top 2/3 of the panel and the grassy area on the bottom 1/3.
▪️ Attach the fence to background with liquid adhesive.
▪️ Blend a darker green with a small brush where the buckets will be attached for a shadow.
5.) Assemble the card.
▪️ Tuck the herb layers, two or three per bucket, into the slits of the buckets (incorporated in the dies) and glue the stems in place on the reverse side of the buckets.
▪️ Tuck the signs into the herbs and secure with liquid adhesive on the reverse side of the buckets as well.
▪️ Use foam squares to attach the two buckets in the back row. Use two layers of foam squares for the buckets in the front row.
▪️ Attach foam squares, cut to size, where they can be disguised behind some herb layers and behind the herb signs.
▪️ Trim the “vines” to allow for tucking behind the fence and secure with liquid adhesive.
▪️ Attach the flowers and secure with liquid adhesive.
6.) Create the sentiment.
▪️ Stamp the sentiments in black ink on white cardstock and die cut with the coordinating dies.
▪️ Use any ink left on a brown blending brush to lightly apply ink to the sentiment die cuts, dulling the stark bright white of the cardstock.
▪️ Attach the sentiments with foam squares.
7.) Finish the card.
▪️ Use a sand eraser or your finger nail to roughen the edges of the card panel.
▪️ Trim a piece of Speckled Egg cardstock from Lawn Fawn to 4 1/2 x 5 3/4 (this card will be slightly bigger than A2) and apply the same distressing to the edges with a sand eraser or your fingernail.
▪️ With liquid adhesive, attach the card panel to the Speckled Egg panel.
▪️ Create a card base from a piece of heavy-weight cardstock trimmed to 9 x 5 3/4, scoring at 4 1/2.
▪️ Attach the finished card to the card base with liquid adhesive.

SUPPLIES

2 thoughts on “Lovely Layers: Herb Garden”

  1. This is gorgeous! Your post might be the most detailed how-to that I have ever encountered on a crafter’s site. Wow! TFS !! I will check out these items.

    Lori S in PA

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    Reply

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