Distressed Background

Good evening after a perfectly lovely sunny SC kind of day. I noticed that our pink thrift (you may refer to it as phlox) is starting to bloom. I'll have to post some pictures, as it is so pretty when it starts to cascade over our retaining walls at the driveway. After wondering when our little lilac bush was going to bloom, I looked out this morning, and saw it was covered with lavendar blossoms.
This bush is proof of survival of the fittest. Neither DH nor I have green thumbs. The house next door was sold to a spec builder some years after we moved into our house. There was a really ratty looking shed on that property which the 'workers' were tearing down - to our great delight. There was a little lilac bush at the corner of the shed, which looked as though it had been there for years. At my instigation, DH asked one of the workers if we could dig up the bush, if they didn't think it would be wanted. They said, sure, they were going to bulldoze it down anyway. So the bush got relocated over to our property and we felt we didn't have anything to lose if it died. It survived over the winter but spring came with no blooms; people told us we needed to prune it back to 1/3 of it's growth. So we did, expecting it to die since we didn't know what we were doing. Lo & behold, the next spring, the little bush just burst forth with loads of blossoms & every year since then, it smells just lovely if you are out near it. Okay, here's a card for today. I made the background using a Hero Arts Flourish, stamped with Versa Mark, embossed with Ranger Sea Foam embossing powder. Then I took TH Distress Victorian Velvet, Broken China and Stormy Sky, with the foam applicator, applied all over the Versa Mark. I liked the look, but then - how to mat it for a card. Nothing I did looked right. So finally just took some mauve-y pink Bazzill, a dark blue Bazzill. Before adhering it to the Bazzill, I used a glittery lavendar gauze ribbon to dress it up a bit, adhered all the layers. Decided to put some pearls on it, cause it still needed 'something'. The little tag was cut with a spellbinder die, on a white scrap. That looked 'too white', so I put some concord grape Distress ink , around the edges. That looked too dark - so then I got the Victorian Velvet, and sponged around with that color, which helped a bit. Some you win, some you lose. I have to say, I don't think this was one of my winners, but I hope the recipient will at least know I'm thinking of her. I used the Footsteps in the Sand sentiment once again, on the inside. Thanks for checking by today.