Memories of Italy

It's big thanks to the lovely Sarah at Play Date Cafe that I finished this piece of altered art this morning. She kindly left a lovely comment on my Snow Bird card and told me about the new challenge blog Play Date Cafe. When I saw the colours to use I just had to finish off this piece which I started a couple of weeks ago as I think it fits the bill perfectly.
This is the inspiration you need to use:

 

My piece of altered art started off as the divider in a box of mini bars of Green & Blacks chocs received  last Christmas and I saved it as I was intrigued by the shape so it ended up in my recycling box.

I decided to use it to make a small memento of my favourite place for holidays-Italy. I just love going there and 2 years ago when my hubby and I celebrated our Silver Anniversary, we went on a really gorgeous trip to Sorrento with our 2 girls and it was the best holiday ever. There are quite a few flourishes on my artwork because we went to Capri on our holiday and took the long route to the top of the island via a back route past the most beautiful gardens with gorgeous wrought iron gates and these flourishes are just like some of the designs.

You'll need to click on the photo to see it properly as I couldn't make it large enough here.

I painted the card with yellow ochre, raw sienna and terracotta acrylic paints and then stamped on some of the tiles from Magenta CSET28 in Vintage Sepia VersaFine ink.

I then made tiny collages for the 4 central panels using leftovers of my watercolour crayon technique papers and some images from a serviette which I scanned and shrunk on my computer. I then added charcoal grey diecuts from the Cuttlebug Floral Borders set. I added small pieces of text which I inked with Topaz Versacolor ink.

The end panels have more border die cuts in black with Prima flowers, brads and brass stampings from Empire Beads, together with tiny mosaic tiles. To finish, I stamped letters to spell Italia with a Hero Arts set in sepia ink and inked them to match.