Janice's Secret Garden

Another fabulously fun Circle of Friends Journal.

This time it was a bit different...well a lot different. Janice wanted us to fill in her "Secret Garden". She mailed it out with the background, green floor paint, line drawn tree and blue bird and everything else has been added so far.

Truth be told when I received this wonderful journal I had no idea what I was going to do. Of course I really wanted to add a gate over the top but that would mean no one else could work on the garden easily and there are still 3 more members to add to this.

I was also scrunched for time having just returned from vacation and have to have this back in the mail no later than Wednesday. So I opened my trusty "stuff" drawer and started pulling things out.



The first thing I pulled out were some lovely tile samples that my sister painstakingly removed from a sampler she had and saved for me. She told me they were impossible to break up and the idea I had required they be broken. Down to the garage hammer in hand I went determined to smack the living daylights out of these things. Well, I shattered the first one to a million pieces, who knew I was so strong. After adjusting my smack down I broke up a few more. Turning the broken bits into a small pond that I outlined in sand.


The mushrooms are from a Paula's Kit Club. When I got them I had no idea what I was going to do with them but they were perfect for this project. I considered adding a flower with a plastic frog, like a frog on a lily pad but I didn't like the flower I had that much. Maybe someone else will add something along those lines.

The cats are a colored German scrap from the most recent Paula's Kit Club. When I glued them on I didn't get them pushed down as low as I would have liked. I wanted the tiles to cover the bottom but the glue caught and I couldn't do anything about it. I thought about painting out the water and grass but worried it would look worse, it is almost impossible to match paint.


The member before me had added a Garden Fairy and I decided to turn her into a Queen of the Garden Fairy's and made her a flower crown.

I have to admit this addition made me very very nervous. If i messed up I would ruin Cheryl's contribution and that would have crushed me. I almost didn't do it. But now that I have I am glad I did, I really think it makes her stand out.

I took two different flowers and cut them apart attaching the petals one at a time randomly around the top portion of the face. When the flowers were done and dry I needed to cover the stem ends. I found this bit of pink German scrap and cut it in half affixed it and added a gem to hide where there had been a hole.






My last addition is the white washed fence. I wanted to put flowers behind it or a bird perched on it but once again I was worried that I was doing to much and not leaving enough space for others to work so maybe they will do something else to the fence.

Once I got started millions of ideas came flooding and I just wanted to keep adding and adding. One of my other ideas was to affix real branches to the tree sticking out 3D style so that someone could add to that, put a nest in it.

I also thought clouds would be a nice addition, maybe cotton balls all pulled apart. The only problem with that one is that you don't want to cover up the sun.

And as I stated further up I really wanted to add a gate/fence to the very front of the box with a latch and all.

I hope that the women after me are not influenced by these ideas and have as much fun with this as I did.


Lastly Janice wanted us to Collage our names around the outside of the box. I have a long name so I decided to just put my normal emblem. Stamped it on transparency and using the same flowers as I did on the Fairy's crown I affixed it all to the outside taking up very little space so everyone else can fit their names now.

I still have to add what I did to the back of the box but I am calling this one done and a success. I hope Janice shares pictures of it when it is com pleated.

Here it is with all of my additions.