Silver, Brown and Verdigris ~ A sea scene

So a few weeks ago this beauty arrived in my mailbox.  What is it you ask?  Well, it's the first journal for me for this years Circle of Friends Journal Rotation, and boy is it gorgeous!

Look at all the texture and this wonderful clay piece Cheryl adorned the cover with.  It took me a while to get pass the gorgeous cover with all it's fabulous textures to get to what I was supposed to do. 

This year Cheryl wants the participants to "color in her coloring book" but she has picked the colors.  Participants are to use Silver, Brown and/or Verdigris. 

Well if you follow me you know I have no trouble using brown or silver, I just tend not to use them together but the real hick up for me came with the Verdigris, heck I had to go look it up on Wikipedia LOL. 

Once I discovered what it was I was really stumped, how was I going to mix these colors together and create something stunning?  So I did what I always do when I get stumped, I cleaned, and guess what I ran across...

Some fabulous mermaid collage images from Alpha Stamps that what do you know used brown, silver and verdigris.  I was in heaven, the perfect images and one of my favorite themes. 

One of Cheryl's other instructions were to go wild with texture, so I did.  But I didn't want anything to get smashed or damage the page in front of it.  So I glued a bunch of pages together (Cheryl always makes sure to include a bunch of extra pages) and cut out a window, creating a bit of a frame and more of the illusion of an under water scene.

I used a cement paste to create the texture, painted it solid white and then washed my colors over.  I was never and still am not pleased with the verdigris color, its too blue.

One of my favorite accessories is the leaf ribbon and I just happened to own it in green, brown and silver.  I brushed some of the verdigris paint over the green one to tone it down and then added miniature class beads and some glitter to it. 

And there is my last mini starfish, I do hope I can find some more but this project needed it.  And can you see my mermaid sillouets?  I bought a fabulous stencil from Alpha Stamps, traced them onto a sandy colored paper and then sponged on brown, verdigris (or the closest I had) and silver Sparkling H2O's.  I love the way they just kind of blend in with everything else.

Cheryl wants all of the participants to "sign in" by creating a tag and adding it to the front few pages of her journal like a table of contents.  I decided to make mine coordinate.  And look at me, I finally got the verdigris color right on the mermaid I created for the tag. 

I love my creation and it was hard to mail it out but I know that on its way to me right now is another fabulous Circle of Friends Journal that I will get to create another fabulous page in. 

If you are interested in joining us at Circle of Friends come check us out.  And just think, next year you could be playing in our Journal Rotations!