Orange Blossom

My page was inspired by my love of orange blossom and citrus fragrance. My inspiration was two-fold, firstly the mock-orange shrub in our front garden which is currently flowering and smells divine and secondly the grapefruit and orange cosmetic products made by Manufaktura in Prague, Czech Republic which I purchased when I was there last and have sadly, just finished.

For the background I layered different colours using a hessian texture and a triangle stamp with both Memento Ink and Spectrum Aqua Markers. I recycled the Manufaktura product labels and paper bag, on which I drew the leaves and cut them out, sticking them onto the page using Liquitex matte gel medium. I used a UHU Stic to adhere the letters which I had stamped onto tissue paper as well as the orange and grapefruit segments, which were originally gift tags. The flowers are actually the backing paper from flower stickers that I had kept hoping they would come in useful. The centres are rhinestone flower stickers and to finish I added some chequered ribbon and orange bows, which I made from the gift tag ribbon.

Because of my love of citrus scents, we planted a mock-orange (Philadelphus) in our front garden. It has wonderful sweet fragrance from its long-lasting white blooms. It’s named “mock-orange” because at first glance the flowers in the wild species look and smell similar to those of the real orange tree. This shrub flowers from late spring to early summer so we are currently enjoying both the beautiful blossoms and the lovely scent.  I’m pleased to be able to join Yvonne aka Meggymay who is hosting the theme “In my garden there is” over at Art Journal Journey.

As T Stands for Tuesday, I’m saying a big hello to all at the T Gang! To continue the orange theme we cracked open a Hoegaarden – a Belgian wheat beer which is flavoured with orange peel and coriander seeds. I know this because my husband makes his own version and this bottle was bought for comparison reasons (I much prefer my husband’s home brewed version!)  Happy T day!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Here is a list of all the materials used to create this art journal page:

• Memento Dye Ink (London Fog, Lulu Lavender)
• Spectrum Aqua Artist’s Markers (Peach, Aquamarine)
• Ranger Archival Ink (Jet black)
• Kaisercraft clear stamp (Texture – Hessian CS153)
• Docrafts Papermania clear stamps (Capsule Geometric Mono)
• Docrafts Papermania 4×4 clear stamps (Bellissima – Alphas PMA907212)
• Table Fun 3 Folded Gift Tags (STSS15-TRIO-ORA3PK)
• Wilko stickers (Flower Embellishments)
• The Works stickers (Rhinestone Flowers)
• Liquitex Matte gel medium
• UHU Stic
• The Range double-sided foam tape
• Ribbon
• White tissue paper
• Labels and paper bag