More Than Words Challenge - April

Our Main Challenge is based on a word inspiration and a creative challenge.

Word Inspiration - NATURE

Creative Challenge - ANIMAL

What does the word NATURE inspire you to create?

You can choose to use the actual word somewhere on your project 

or simply be inspired by it.  Since words are an integral part of our challenges, we want to know how this month's word stimulated your creative process, so please do explain in your blog post how 
it inspired you if it isn't obvious in your work.

This month, our creative challenge is to use either an ANIMAL IMAGE or an ANIMAL PRINT on your project. You can scrap about your special pet. You can add a sticker or flair depicting a bird or a bear. Or maybe you have a gorgeous zebra print paper in your stash or a paw print punch 
in your punch collection that you've been waiting to use. 
Follow your animal instinct and let your creativity go wild!

http://morethanwordschallenge.blogspot.com.au

I loved this challenge and wanted to focus on the hidden NATURE in my backyard. This is a beautiful Christmas Beetle and I love the bright iridescent colours. I have started with a stencilled background and added Lindys Magicals to added a mixture of green and brown tones creating a natural palette. I then laid strips of patterned paper and tags making sure to raise then up with chipboard underneath. I also added wonderful strips of paper that had pictures of beetles on them from old pattern paper. To create a natural look to the page, I inserted pieces of webbing. To add the look of raindrops, I painted the bottom of clear pebbles with Finnabair alchemy Lime Peel paint and finally flicked some of the beautiful lime paint over the page. I finished of with a Dusty Attic word painted in more Finnabair alchemy paint - Emerald to add a deeper colour tone. I added some paint flicks of the Emerald over the page to pull the colours together. I stamped and embossed a bee on the page and lightly underneath one of the strips of paper. 

You are welcome to use any of my ideas that I have used on the layout and if you enjoy, please take the time to add a comment below or  start following my blog.