Last Flowers of the Summer - goodbye to Riikka

Hello dear Readers!

New Monday and another goodbye... Please, give a huge round of applause for Riikka who never stops amazing me!

This time she went crazy creative (as usual!) with my stamps and prepared another post filled with wonderful art inspiration...

This year with Finnabair has truly been an amazing one!

I’ve loved playing with all the gorgeous products and I’ve learnt so much – both from her, from my team mates and also about myself.

As my final project for this team I created a bunch of flowers. My idea was to do something in the flaming colors of autumn and also something that would turn our thoughts to the fading summer.

The flowers and the figure in the “garden” also work as a thank you piece for the fantastic ride! Thank you for the honor of being in the team, Ania! I can’t express how grateful I am! Also a big thank you to the fantastic teamies and for you readers with your encouragement and kind words!

The piece has also its roots in the fabulous stamps Finnabair has. I just love the female figures and the grungy look of the different elements.
For this project I chose to use many stamps in a slightly different way. I turned the stained glass windows, phone dials and clocks into pretty blooms!

The biggest, layered flower is made from the stained glass window style design from the “Old Town” set.

The smaller one on its side is the small circular one from the “Tea on the Deck” set.

The round petal ones on the left are the phone dial from the “Never Too Late” and the big red one on the right is made out of the clock from “Never Too Late” and has heart petals from the “Trustthe Magic” set.

There are also heart buds peeking in the ground as well as clock keys. When thinking about the flowers, I was looking for designs that had symmetry I could use to make the petals – like those of the phone dial or the stained glass window.

The ground from where the blooms grow is made out of Modeling Paste covered with Gold Crackle Paste and then toned down using India ink. The ink also highlights the cracks.

The ground also has some sparkle from the Gold Leaf Mica Flakes and black Glass Glitter.

The blooms and the lady on other hand are decorated with glitter, Glass Beads and Micro Beads.

I shot a video while working on this craft. It’s missing the part when I put the whole thing together as I didn’t know what I was doing and the process was highly experimental.
To tell you the truth, I don’t ever have a big masterplan when I start to create but I just let the process lead me. I have an idea in my head and have the starting point and the end result in my mind but no idea how to get there. Then it’s just playing and having fun and seeing if my idea becomes a reality!

So as my last grain of inspiration kind of guesting here in Finnabair’s blog, I urge you to really throw yourselves into the crafts!

Be hard headed and if the first way fails, try another one. Don’t be put down if a project seems like it’s going nowhere in the first place – refuse to accept the failure when it hits you and try to work around.

To be completely honest – at the point when I had the flowers done and the lady standing in a piece of gold covered cardboard… I thought it was all lost! But I refuse to let the project go so easily and just kept adhering the blooms to the piece and then it “started to bloom”. And the end result didn’t turn out that bad, right?

I hope I have inspired you and that we see again! Please also come and visit me in my own blog if you like!

Riikka

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