Vintage Paris Canvas

So I hopped out of my box again yesterday and created another canvas.  Actually, it's an "un-canvas" - an "artist's panel" that claims to be "better than canvas."  Whatever.... its un-canvas properties actually made it very easy to adhere paper to, so I went with it, LOL!

This project was inspired by two challenges...... at The Shabby Tea Room this week, there is this gorgeous photo and the word "reflections" to inspire us.  Oh, how I loooooove the look of this mantel arrangement.  I want it in my house this very second.  Inspiration abounds.....

And, a fairly new challenge at a blog called More Paper Than Shoes.  Why, oh why, didn't I think of that blog name first??? It describes my life in four easy words.  Anyway, this challenge gives a little list of rules - actually, items and techniques that must be incorporated into the challenge. So for this month, the theme/items/techniques are:

Vintage Paris

Metal

Acrylic Paint

Fabric

Crackle

Any surface

The design team over at MPTS is amazing - all of them.  But before I show you my close-ups and tell you all the yada yada, I have to show you the DT project that made my jaw drop... here is the pic - and if you love it, run, don't walk, over to DT member Megan Bean's blog to see the rest of this amazing little album of hers on THIS post. Oh, but DO come back, will you????

Okay, so for my little project, I started with Bon Voyage Paris paper from Gartner Studios.  Next came paint around the edges of the canvas, which was Distress Crackle in Antique Linen, distressed with Walnut Stain.  I added a few pieces of vintage text from an old French school primer after that.  The beautiful little lady is a stamp from The Fairest Flower plate from Oxford Impressions, stamped in Ancient Page ink and distressed with Antique Linen.  Surrounding her is a Tattered Angels frame with silver Vintage Art Glass Glitter.  Oh my, I love that stuff!  I splurged, I hoarded for a long time, but now that I've used it I can see the difference - the sparkle IRL is amazing, and I can't wait for the patina to gently tarnish.  This is the "reflections" part for the Shabby Tea Room challenge, too.

For the metal, I used some of T!m's flowers, which I bent a little with jewelry pliers to give them a little more depth.

For the fabric, I stamped images from The Fairest Flower, Paris Exposition (Artistic Outpost), and Stampin' Up! onto some muslin, frayed the edges, and adhered it to the not-so-pretty sides of my un-canvas.

One last little photo to show you how well I'm coming along with my hoarding problem.. this is a vintage crochet covered button, which I have only one of... and I put it on this un-canvas.  (Eeeeeee, I'm breaking into a cold sweat just typing it... okay, deep breaths.... fine.)  See?  Pretty good, eh? LOL!

Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you're all having a happy week.  Tomorrow I'll have a little card for the next Gingersnap Creations challenge... see ya then. :)

Rockabye - A Little Double Dippin'

I don't normally combine challenges, but these two challenges went together so beautifully I just couldn't resist.  Over at The Shabby Tea Room, the Week #5 challenge is It's Hip To Be Square, and they have this lovely baby quilt as their inspiration photo.  Over at Our Creative Corner Weekly Sketch Challenge, they have this wonderfully square-filled sketch for OCCSC #11.  A match made in heaven, I think!

My sweet little baby image is from Cornish Heritage Farms' Baby Dear stamp set, along with the "Down Lullaby Lane" sentiment from their Vintage Baby Expressions set.  I colored the image with Copics to match my patterned papers, which are from GCD Studios Melody Ross Homespun Chic collection (some fabulous blog candy I received from the lovely Julie of Julie's Open Window).  I tied up this little vignette with some Martha Stewart ribbon, and added some glittered chipboard doves, also from the Melody Ross collection.  A little Cuttlebug embossing and zigzag stitching is going on behind the scenes.

Hope you are all having a beautiful weekend.  I'm going to go out and enjoy the sunny Carolina blue skies. :)

The Shabby Tea Room Week #4

 

I'm so glad I finally got to play in The Shabby Tea Room's challenge this week, because it involves one of my very favorite color schemes - whites and creams.  The challenge for Week #4 is "Embrace the White" - to create a card or project using mainly white or cream and one other subtle color.  This lovely inspiration photo was the jumping off point.  For my card, I knew I wanted to use lots of vintage goodies, so I started out using some vintage sheet music that I received as a RAK from Louise at Kard Krazy some time ago, layered onto a panel of my "subtle color" (blue).  Next came some gathered and aged crepe paper.  My butterfly is from Tattered Angels, shabbied up with some distress ink and prettied with some clear glass glitter.  I used some white hydrangea blooms off of a big box store stem, centered with a Basic Grey brad.

The teeny tiny sentiment is from the Botanical Bliss set by Cornish Heritage Farms.  I love that their ATC line (All Things Considered) has these lovely small-scale sentiments - perfect for a tiny tag.  Some vintage lace "antennae" and three vintage mother of pearl buttons finish it off.  Hope you're having a wonderful weekend, with some time to play!

Shabby Tea Room Week #3 - Get Scrappy!

 No new sheets of patterned paper were harmed in the making of this card.  Seriously.  This is a 100% pure scrap-made card!  The challenge over at The Shabby Tea Room this week is "Let's Get Scrappy."  Oh, how fun and liberating it is to make yourself work from your scrap box!!  C'mon, you know we all have them... hoards of little scraps of beautiful patterned papers that we just can't bear to part with.  I take that one step further... I have a box of stamped images and leftover bits of "techniqued" papers that I save.  Usually they are the result of my stamping too many images for a project, or I stamp on ivory and decide I really should have stamped on white, etc.  Sometimes I try out a technique and either don't use the entire piece or decide to go with different colors, for example.  I save all of these misfit scraps, and today, I finally actually used some of them!

I should also mention that the fabulous Melissa Phillips is the guest designer this week at The Shabby Tea Room.  She has her own little inspiration challenge, which currently centers around this gorgeous photo, which I took as a springboard for the colors in my card (didn't stick with the scheme exactly, but that's what an inspiration photo is for, right?  a starting point....my creation is decidedly using the shabby-vintage version of this color scheme...;)

So, working up from the bottom layer... the light blue patterned paper is an ancient Anna Griffin design.  Next up are two scraps from a "Couture Pack" of paper by Autumn Leaves.  The stripe is actually a little altered piece I made - I had stamped various Cornish Heritage Farms stamps on it and clear embossed them, then ran over the whole thing with a brayer and brown ink of some kind.  I was trying to come up with an idea for the CHF Summer Stamp Star Design Challenge using "resist" way back when, but decided to go in an entirely different direction.  I saved that little experiment, though, and here it is making it's debut, LOL!  The music is vintage, already torn and left over from THIS project.  Even my Tree Swallows image is a leftover..... it's an extra from THIS artist trading card project months ago.  I had made extras, just in case....  For the flower fringe around the image, I took some inspiration from the gorgeous Prima trim I used in THIS project, and made my own, coloring some Prima flowers with my Copics, folding them in half, and affixing them to the back of the image.  A scrap of twill tape, shabbied up, is the base for the sentiment (Hero Arts).  My tape was gleaming white, and I didn't have time to tea-dye some, so I cheated:  I just ran the pad of Antique Linen Distress ink over it, then ran the edges over the Tea Dye pad and presto!  This is a good technique to use in a pinch if you only need a little snippet of twill.  And that's it.  Everything old is new again.  So try it out.... it's fun... you know you've been meaning to use those scraps.... so go on now, do it! ;)

An Easter Basket for the Shabby Tea Room Challenge

It's Week #2 of challenges at a fabulous new blog, The Shabby Tea Room.  This week's challenge was to create a card or project that is "Spring Inspired - With Stitching." Well, with Easter right around the corner, I couldn't help but use my all-time favorite bunny stamp, "Easter Basket" from Cornish Heritage Farms.  And since the challenge required stitching, I decided it would be a good time to pull out some Claudine Hellmuth Sticky Back Canvas and have a go at coloring it with Copics.   This technique produces a wonderfully soft, faded (could we say "shabby"?) effect.  I zigzag stitched around the image, then used multiple strips of Kioshi patterned paper (just like my last post) to create an Easter-colored background, which I straight-stitched along the edges.  A little Martha ribbon and some hydrangea blossoms were enough to accent this sweet bun-bun.  Have a beautiful Palm Sunday, and happy crafting!

Shabby Tea Room Inaugural Challenge

I found a brand new challenge blog a few days ago called The Shabby Tea Room.  It's headed up by a few gals that are in my neck of the woods (central North Carolina), and the inspiration is just leaping off the page over there!!  Their very first challenge is "Elegant Shabby" and is based on this picture, using colors of pink, cream, red, green, and brown.

For my card, I used some paper from the Mariposa collection by Die Cuts With A View as the focal point of the tag.  The other papers are from K and Company and My Mind's Eye.  The little flower chipboard piece is also from the Mariposa line.  All of the stamps used are from Cornish Heritage Farms: Vintage Butterflies, French Script Backgrounder, and Ornamental Beauty (sentiment).  The fabulous scrunchy seam binding is from Bluebird Lane Etsy shop.  I stitched, distressed, painted, sanded, glimmer misted, and inked 'til I got that shabby look I wanted - such fun!  If you like creating in this style, you'll definitely want to check out the samples and all the other submissions at The Shabby Tea Room.  One really cool thing..... everyone's linked project is shown as a thumbnail, so you get a little peek before you even visit their blogs.  That's new to me, and I love it!