There is something about making a Dandelion necklace in Spring that brings back magical childhood memories. I remember playing in the woods at our summer cabin. (We lived the rest of the year in the Middle East because my dad was in the Oil Business.) And we would do things like fold notes up into tiny bundles and hide them in the knot of a tree. I remember actually believing a tiny little person might find the note.

When I watch my kids play I hope they are building lots of happy memories. This day I tried to show my four year old how to make a Dandelion necklace. She liked picking the flowers, but she was a little too impatient to learn how. I was happy to get her to lay down in the flower bed for this photo. I only wish I’d done it the week before when it was covered with little purple flowers!

To create the photo I played with all kinds of artistic filters and blending options. The middle of the photo was selected with a messy painterly mask and then I applied the woodcut filter. Then another copy of the photo on the layer behind has a couple of different filters applied. Next I clipped it to an aged piece of paper and also used that paper as an overlay.

I really wanted the necklace to pop, so I painted it back in from the original photo, duplicated that layer and applied another art filter. Then, I applied a shadow to the necklace layer. Dawn Inskip’s child-like doodles were the perfect finishing touch, they really helped capture the magic of playing outside in spring time!

Here is the original photo of my daughter Raeleigh:

Credits: Several kits from Dawn Inskip, Bokeh paper from MK Designs,  Sunburst Overlay from Spinky Dinky Scraps, Scallop frame from MMullens, glitter style from Flergs, Ribbons by Amanda Heimann