Thursday 13 October 2016

Pandas and Bamboos

I only have one single lonely panda stamp in my collection, and I was delighted to be able to get the Pandas and Moongates plate from Art Neko Stamps so that I now have a little troupe of pandas. I looked up the collective noun (inspired by Lorraine's educating me on the rout of snails) and found that a group of pandas is an embarrassment. How could a bunch of pandas be an embarrassment?? A bamboo of pandas sounds more promising, and inspired by that I am also picking out a couple of photos from our visit to a bamboo garden while in France this summer.

But first - here's my Panda card. I had already had to look up what Moon Gates were - a traditional feature in Chinese gardens. I'm more familiar with the Tori gate in Japanese gardens - there was one in the bamboo garden that we visited...


I stamped my panda on white card, and coloured the background and bamboo with Inktense pencils, then masked the panda and sponged in the background. I suppose I should have done a night sky and added a moon - perhaps next time.
I used old Cuttlebug Vintage Corner dies behind the image panel, and then a layer with a Spellbinders Fleur de Lis square embossed into it. The panda and decorative black panels are raised slightly from the base.

And here are some bamboos to provide a homely setting for him...When I finally get round to editing some more holiday photos, I'll provide a link to the site for the garden. We visited it on our way back north from Provence, as a way of doing something during the day and not simply driving for a full day. It was so peaceful and relaxing and we would go again and spend more time.






4 comments:

Lorraine said...

I have to admit that my jaw dropped when I saw this. It's stunning. I love the subject matter first of all, and the design is absolutely wonderful.

Lorraine said...

I meant to add that there's a house down the block from us that planted bamboo in their front yard and now that's all there is in the front yard. They obviously didn't research which varieties are invasive.

Judy Rozema said...

Simply beautiful, Sabrina!

Heidi MyLittleStampingBlog said...

Your card is stunning and I love your photos of the bamboo garden. When I usually see bamboo it is for someone to provide privacy for their yard and it usually looks like it got out of hand, but not the garden you posted. It is lovely!