Hello Maja friends!

I’m in on a hot Thursday afternoon to share with you my latest project made for Maja Design using the Antligen collection. By the time I finished my layout, my fingers were all purple and white, but what I really want them to be is green! I’ll explain why later, but firstly, here is my page:

I’m using the Antligen collection from Maja Design, which is really all about Springtime and the earth coming back to life with beautiful flowers after a long cold winter. That fitted the nature theme in my photo perfectly (although the photo I chose was one I took of my favourites – Lavender Augustafolia, was in autumn). Now, the climate here in Singapore is really not suitable for growing lavender because of the over-bearing humidity which kills off the plant by encouraging root rot. In my last tries, I managed to get the seeds to germinate and sprout, and then suddenly they all died off after a month. Then someone gifted me a pot of blooming ones, but they all never survived more than two months even with full sunlight and careful watering. Bear in mind I’m someone who can actually kill cactus…. So when we booked ourselves into the Lavender and Berry farm on our Perth trip, you can imagine how gaga I went over the gorgeous flowers in bloom. And it was effortless for them. *Green eyes* Now I’m trying to grow some cherry tomatoes but they all seemed to have stopped at the seedling stage. Maybe I should give up and just paint my fingers green instead.

So my long story aside and back to the project. I’ve kept my paper layering to a minimum, with just enough to create the flow in my composition and focused a lot more on the background details this time round. Maja Design collections come with a mixture of beautifully drawn images as well as neutral plain papers, which are perfect for adding on mediums to create your very own background if you are into experimenting with mixed media like me. The colors also make it easy to match papers across different collection as well.

Some close-ups:

Back to my usual style of tucking in chipboards in between my papers. I have strips of green and purple paper from the Antligen collection, as well as some fussy cut flowers from the collection to fill out the composition nicely. To make the fussy cut flowers stand out, I doodled the edges with black gelato. The chipboard I colored with three different shades of purple, two shades of green, and adhered clear Distress Glitter on the edges for some interesting texture.

A closer look at what I did for the background – stenciling and doodling around the relief, sprinkling of transparent and black microbeads, splatters of watercolor and acrylic inks.

Hidden details behind the photo with random stamping, a painted metal water fountain with little roses tucked in. It’s starting to look like an English garden! My title is “Great Outdoors” and it describes so well my love for everything under the sun.

Filling out the bottom part of the composition nicely with some chipboard vines. I painted with two different shades of green and sprinkled on clear microspheres when the paint is wet. And just in case, I sealed the beads with a thin layer of gel medium.

So that’s all I have for today. Before you go, I would love to hear some of your gardening wins and woes too!

Maja Design papers used:

Syrenen blommar, Kaffe pa trappan, Naturen dofta, Forsommar, Vardagjamning

Other supplies:

Flowers and embellishment: Prima Marketing Inc, Wild Orchid Crafts,
Stencil: Prima Marketing
Chipboards: Blue Fern Studios
Mediums: 13@rts (modeling paste, gel medium, acrylic inks, paints, microbeads), Shimmerz (Inklingz), Rangers (Distress Paint and Stains), Twinkling H2Os
Stamps: Kaisercraft, Blue Fern Studios