Ellibelle's Garden Party No. 15 - Anything in (or from) a Garden... Plus More Italy Vacation Photos: Varenna)

Hello everyone, it's time for a new Garden Party to start and all are invited to join in the fun!

As always, you may share anything in or from a garden. This can be crafts of any kind, garden photography or garden tips, weddings and tea parties taking place in a  garden... So many options!! As always the linky tool is at the end of the post along with my Top Picks from the last party, each one invited to join me as a special party guest :)

At the end of the post I'm also sharing an assortment of photos from our daytrip from Milan to Varenna on Lake Como. They are very garden focused so fit well into today's post. If you're not interested in the pictures simply scroll down to the very end for the Garden Party link up.

Here is what I made this time:

I started with a smooshed background using diluted Distress inks. I found a piece of inky cardstock in my stash of extras that matched the background piece so I used that extra piece to stamp the boots onto and then fussy cut. I thought the postmarks stamp from the same set would work well to "ground" the boots and I used the same stamp directly on the boots to give them some more detail.

Next I stamped the butterfly collage stamp directly onto the background but it didn't stamp fully so I decided to use another butterfly stamp from the same set, stamped on another snippet of inky cardstock and fussy cut then added right over the large butterfly. "Fly Free" and "Butterfly" are part of the same sets: Tracy Evans for Aall and Create The Great Outdoors and Spread Your Wings. Both have been retired but possibly still found at some retailers...

I plan to share the above card with these challenges:

At Mix It Up Challenge it's all about Stamped Backgrounds, Moving along with the Times wants to see Butterflies, Paper Rock Scissors is looking for Paper and/or Scissors (I used both this time!), then at The Pick 3 Challenge we need to choose three from a list of 6 words(I chose Boots/Feminine/For a Friend) and at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge it's Things with Wings. My color scheme was inspired by the current optional Triple B moodboard with pink butterfly, bird for flower. Finally at We Love Stamping it's all about all creatures great or small.

I'm so excited to introduce a Special Party Guest this time around and that is Guest Designer Irene of Irene's Scrapbook. So happy yo have you as a special guest, Irene!!

Irene's Card

This card puts a big smile on my face as I love hedgehogs and daisies!! Please visit her blog to find out how she made this card.

Top Picks for Garden Party No. 14

Now it's time to announce my Top 3 from the last Garden Party. It was so great to visit all your blogs and admiring your gorgeous creations. Susan aka rainy if you read this, I am sorry that I wasn't able to leave you a comment, I kept getting an error message and my comment wouldn't go through.

My Top 3 are listed in the order of entry:

No. 10 Loopyloo

No. 32 Suzanne Reynolds

No. 44 Pauline

Congratulations to each one of you on your well deserved recognition! Your top Pick logo is below you may post this to your own blogs if you like to :) Please read the info below if you'd like to join me as a special party guest.

New this year:

I would like to invited each Top Pick to join me as a "Special Party Guest" in the next Garden Party (starting June 18th). Please message me at ellibellescorner at gmail dot com if you would like to be a special guest. Of course this is totally optional as I know we all are busy in one way or another just thought it would be something fun to offer the top picks :)

(Btw. Even if you are a special party guest for the month, you are still invited to share your other garden themed creations in the linky tool during the month!)

As promised I am sharing some more of my April vacation photos. This time the photos are from our daytrip from Milan to Varenna on Lake Como. Mid-April on a weekday was definitely the perfect time to visit as it gets extremely busy during summer - and as a bonus, the beautiful Wisteria was in full bloom during our visit. 

Varenna is known for its beautiful gardens at Villa Cipressi and Villa Monastero and they were why I planned this daytrip from Milan. Some  of you know how much I enjoy gardens! Plus it only takes one hour to get here from Milan and train tickets were easily purchased from the Trenitalia site and very inexpensive. 

This is "Heaven's Gate" at Villa Cipressi. Be prepared to wait in line for your turn... Unfortunately some visitors turn this into longer photo sessions for Instagram (some showed up with tri-pods for their phones)  but I can't blame them as it's such a beautiful spot.

 

Even prettier without people in it...

All roads to the town center were very narrow and uphill like the one below.

Many daytrip tourists take ferry rides to other villages on Lake Como but I wanted to have enough time to explore Varenna and I didn't want to wait in a line for a ferry on our first visit to Varenna. It worked out perfectly and we enjoyed a relaxed day surrounded by beauty and some surprises (such as a small scorpion on a wall - I had no idea Northern Italy had scorpions - luckily I found out these are pretty harmless!)

PS: If you missed my Milan pictures and would like to see them you can find them here. I have more vacation photos and soon I will share some snapshots from Verona.

But now let's get back to the party... it's time for your share at the Garden Party No. 15!

Simply link a new or recently shared post (featuring something in or from a garden) using the linky tool below. To make it even more fun and maybe meet a new blogging friend I invite you to visit another entrant's blog post and leave them some love. This is just a suggestion and in no way do you have to :)

Below are the main guidelines at a glance:

• Your entry must feature something in or from a garden.
• You may combine with any other challenges/link parties.
• Please leave a link back to this blog.
• Up to 5 entries per blogger please.
• Backlinking to a recent post is allowed.
• The party ends on Monday June15th at 11:59pm CST

A Monocromatic Card and Some Vacation Pictures (Milan)

Hello everyone, it's the start of a new Allsorts challenge and it's Liz' turn to host. For her optional theme she chose "Monochromatic". I love monochromatic color schemes. As always, if the theme isn't for you then there is the "Anything Goes" option. We love to see all your crafty makes up to 5 per entrant. This time there are 2 prizes from the Allsorts prize box, an A5 stamp set and A6 stamp and stencil. 

I'm also sharing part of my vacation pictures below... I'm afraid it turned into a photo- heavy post.

To make my card I used Salvaged Patina Distress ink to make an inky (smooshed) background. Then I chose Tracy Evans large stamp set Daisy Elegance. This set is retired from Aall and Create and unfortunately one of the harder to find sets. This stamp is large and I only used a portion of it for the card. Most of the wording is part of the set, the only separate thing is the quote "Cherish the little things" which is part of another Tracy Evans stamp set.

I added die cut butterflies made with Penny Black die set Soaring. Glitter was added to the flower centers. I made my own colored cardstock by inking a piece of white neenah paper using the same ink, then mounted this onto a white card base.

I am entering this card here:

• A Perfect Time To Craft - AG
• Beautiful Blossoms - Flowers
• Crafting from the Art Challenge - AG
• Crafts Galore Encore - AG
• Crafty Catz - AG
• Cut It Up - Something with wings
• Craft Rocket Challenges - Not Square
• DL.Art Linky Challenge - AG
• Double D - Watercolor (my background)
• Dragonfly Dreams - Use Die Cuts
• Fab n' Funky - Pink, yellow or blue
• Let's Craft & Create Challenge - AG 
• Lil Patch of Crafty Friends - AG
• Moving along with the Times - Butterflies
• Paper Rock Scissors - Paper and/or scissors
• Pearly Sparkles Challenge - Butterflies
• Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Feminine
• Sweet Stampin - Things with Wings
• The Paper Funday - AG
• Triple B - Blooms, Butterflies or Birds
• We Love Stamping - All Creatures Great and Small
• Word Art Wednesday - AG

Coming soon!!!

And going on right now: Discount code for Allsorts challenge participants AllsortsBD17 from AALL and Create provides a 15% discount valid from 1st May through 31st May and available on all items in their store plus free shipping on orders over £39.99 (PS: Unfortunately I am not sure if Free Shipping offer is only for UK...)

We had an absolutely wonderful time overseas visiting family and more. This time I decided to book a flight to Milan (instead of the usual Munich) to visit the area for a few days and then take the train from Milan directly to my sister's town just north of Munich. We took way too many pictures (as usual!) and I couldn't decide what to share so that means I will share some today  (Milan) and some in future posts.

We only had a few days in Northern Italy but we checked most things off of my "to visit" list.

As tired as we were after arriving in Milan, we still decided to walk to the Duomo on that first evening. It was a 30 minute walk from our hotel but it felt good after sitting for the long overnight flight. 

On the left side of the Duomo (below) is Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, a shopping center with lots of high end shops. We did check that out as well. The architecture was impressive but we didn't go to Milan to shop so we didn't really spend a lot of time there.

Instead I saw the castle through the other end of the shopping center and and we walked over there.

The next day we had tickets for the Duomo (which I purchased directly from the site), including the rooftop terraces and St. Charles Crypt. Sadly we didn't realize St. Charles Crypt closed at 5pm and missed that. 

It's hard to tell but there is a life- size statue on each one of the spires. The golden statue in the center was very hard to photograph.

Milan business district in the distance. 

Loved the tile floor inside the Duomo.

We had tickets to see the "Last Supper" mural at Basilica Santa Maria delle Grazie painted by Leonardo Da Vinci... I had also purchased these tickets directly from their site but as they sell out quickly I had to purchase them about 4 months in advance, acutally I purchased these before I had booked the flight. I read that these tickets are really hard to get. Right now they are all sold out until end of August and at some point they will open up ticket sales for the following 3 months (Sept/Oct./Nov.) It's a bit confusing and you pretty much have to know when they release the tickets for sale so you can get them as soon as they open up. Google helped me a lot! Thought I'd share that bit of info in case some of you might want to see this too. 

The mural is inside the rectory of the basilica below.

Tickets to the Last Supper have to be validated 30 minutes before your time slot so after validating we had time to explore the courtyard and gift shop.

I was surprised that we were allowed to take pictures of the mural.

We strolled through Parco Sempione which stretches from Castello Sforzesco to Arco Della Pace. My husband wanted to see the arch up close and luckily the rainclouds had moved on so we enjoyed a walk through this park. I had no idea that we'd find Monk Parakeets in this park. That was a nice surprise but they were hard to photograph and easier heard than seen.

This is the best picture we took of the parakeet. They are pretty much the color of the leaves. 

Lots of turtles and a view of Castello Sforzesco in the background.

The castle through the arch and my husband was happy we made the walk.

Everything  of interest to us was located in/near Milan's historic city center so it was easy to get around on foot from our hotel. A few more snapshots below...

Loved that the Wisteria was blooming!

 These tiny city cars were everywhere!! I had not seen this Fiat model before this trip. 

In my next post I will share some pictures from our daytrip to Varenna on Lake Como which was very easy to reach by train. I plan to share those pictures in my next "Garden Party" post (on May 14th). Varenna is a very small town so there won't be this many pictures (I hope!!)

Thanks so much for visiting!! And hope to see you at the Allsorts challenge blog too! Remember, the challenge runs for 2 weeks!

Happy Thoughts for Four Seasons May Challenge

Hello everyone, I just got back from a 2 week blogging break. The last few posts had all been scheduled as I was in Europe visiting with my family and friends, and I also decided to spend a few days in Northern Italy before taking a train to Germany (we flew into Milan this time instead of Munich so Italy was the first part of our trip.) It's been a wonderful time. When I get around it I'll share a few pictures. I will try to catch up with commenting this coming week and get back to normal life.

May has arrived and that means it's the start of a new Four Seasons challenge where we have another fun Spring Mood Board to inspire you. It's a seasonal Anything Goes challenge, so the mood board is optional and we'd love to see all your spring themed creations (up to 3 entries per participant). 

My inspiration came from the bottom left image of flowers inside a vase and I tried to follow the color scheme of that image too, but my butterflies didn't show up as yellow as I want them to be (adding glitter to them didn't help!)

The stamp I used is from the Penny Black clear set Sunny Wishes. Stamped with Versafine Onyx and colored wiht Faber Castell Polychromos pencils. I masked off the edge and inked the image panel. Then used a Tim Holtz stencil for a design on the background. Sentiment is from the Penny Black set ... A few black Posca pen spots flicked onto the card finish it off.

Thanks so much for visiting and hope to see you at the Four Seasons challenge blog!