Say it with flowers!

Happy weekend to you all!  Hope you enjoyed your Easter break last weekend; I managed to fill my Easter week by meeting up with some wonderful friends and also got some much needed sorting done, so hopefully I'm better prepared for a busy time coming up :)

 I have a tag to share today using a set of Paperartsy background stamps I was lucky to pick up in the sale; I love doing backgrounds and I often have trouble covering them up with a main feature but I went for some embellishment on this tag with some small paper roses (made using die cuts from the Alterations tattered floral die).  The background colours are Distress Ink in shaded lilac, squeezed lemonade and peacock feathers with some ink splats in broken china and scattered straw Distress Stain.  The stamped images are black and coffee Archival and poppy red Impress Ink, with some overstamped script in picket fence Distress Stain.

You can also see a little strip of washi tape with the word 'faith' peeping out from behind the flowers at the bottom :)

You can find tutorials on how to make the paper roses online; I was taught how to make them by Hels Sheridan at a workshop so here's the link to her tutorial.

You can see the pieces I started out with here, stamped with script in coffee Archival Ink...

...and then coloured in Distress Ink (in dusty concord, peacock feathers and squeezed lemonade)...

...this is the rose assembled...

...which I then sprayed with a little black Dylusions Ink to grunge it up a bit.

Along with the flowers I added some brown cord, some Tim Holtz and 7gypsies tickets (torn and inked), some pearl hatpins, an Ideaology fragment with a piece of stamped manila card glued to the back (with my initial!) and some yellow baker's twine tying it onto the pin.

I finished up by inking the edges with dusty concord and frayed burlap Distress Ink and some black Archival, and by tying on some Basic Grey fibres I've had tucked away for ages; the colours seem to match really well!

Thank you for visiting us today, have a great weekend and hopefully we'll have some exciting news to share with you in the very near future so watch this space :)

Happy scrapping!

Gayle xx

Where did you get that hat?

Finally! It's taken me on and off since Christmas to get done with this project but at last I'm done ;)

This is a Tando Creative cardboard Mad Hatter hat which was bought for me at Christmas by my Mum from The Stamp Attic (I believe Wendy might still have some in the shop) - one each for me, my Mum and my Nan to work on when we got together at Christmas.  Mum and Nan had finished by New Year, me not so much...(!)

The kit comes as a flat pack but you glue it together into this 3D shape. I decided it needed the Andy Skinner treatment (yes, still loving this technique!) but no book this time - I moved onto a Mad Hat!  Of the additional pieces, some were included with the hat kit itself but Tando also make an extra small kit of parts which go with this set - teacup, 'drink me' sign etc.

 I made a small rose from card using the Tattered Florals Alterations die and sprayed it with black and red spray inks, and found a large Prima rose which seemed perfect apart from the colour so I sprayed it to match.  I added some Idealogy cogs to match the metallic look of the hat, and tied lace and ribbons around the base of the hat.

The '10/6' label is part of the kit (painted and then inked, with a layer of glossy accents on the letters) and the pins tucked behind it are Papermania Vintage Notes.
I thought it would be fun to add a little signature Mad Hatter trinket, so used a 7Gypsies photo holder with a circle of card cut to size and inked, and then covered over with Glossy Accents to look like glass and hung from a piece of brown twine.

Thank you so much for visiting today and coming to take a peek at my hat :) it was really fun to make and I'm quite pleased with how it came out :) hope you're getting lots done for National Craft Month, don't forget to keep an eye on the Facebook page, Twitter and our Facebook chat group for some little surprise RAKs that will be announced for our followers :)

Gayle xx

Veterans Day Inspired Album

Hi Everybody, Kristin here to share a Veterans Day inspired album.

 

  

~In Tribute to~ John Alphonse Langlais

My Father In Law was a good man who lived a Forrest Gump-esque life. Born in Quebec, he was the son of a single mother who supported her children by working in the orphanages her children lived in. His family immigrated to the East coast of Maine when he was a youth, where he learned to love seafood. He was an amateur Hockey player, an Enforcer in fact, yet an all around tender and funny guy who made everyone he met, laugh and smile. He served in not one but two branches of the Armed Forces, the Army and later the Marines becoming an American Citizen while serving.  He was in both World War II and the Korean war. Having traveled around the world, he had many stories. Being stranded in France during World War II was a popular one. He was lucky enough to fall back on his French and communicate with a family willing to hide him until he was picked up by his Unit. Later in life he settled on the West coast, near the orange groves in Orange, CA, where he helped raise two amazing children. Through his life, he was lucky enough to be married to two different extraordinary women. Even later in life, he was simply Grandpa, who spoke French with a Maniac accent, pulled funny faces and told funny stories. His life may seem to be made up of lots of "Two's" but he was "One of a Kind". He is no longer with us but will live on in our memories forever.

When he passed, we were given priceless pictures from his time in the military and I knew the second I saw them I wanted to create something for my husband to hold some of these treasured moments.

 

I started with  Kraft colored glassine envelopes by Advantus - designed by Tim Holtz , under the  Idea-ology Collection. I loved the look of these, they already reminded me of the military and they had ready made pockets for special treasures.

In the US, they can be found here; http://store.scrapbook.com/products/

In the UK, check with http://www.theartisticstamper.com/ OR http://www.thestampattic.co.uk/

The next step was cutting mat board pages and covers to match the size of the envelopes. I distressed them with several colors of Distress stains, by Ranger Ink-also designed by Tim Holtz and found some grunge style pattern papers to line the covers and pages. Most of the paper I used was Tim Holtz or 7 Gypsies.

In the US, you can find Distress Stains and other Ranger products here; http://store.scrapbook.com/cat-brand/paint-ranger+ink.html 

In the UK, check with; http://www.thestampattic.co.uk/
OR http://www.theartisticstamper.com/

 You can see in the above picture, where the envelopes met the mat board. I glued the envelopes to the mat board pages, added a few staples for looks only and then added some pictures on top of the envelope flap to utilize the whole page. The envelopes then created a tri-fold effect and were able to be used as pockets for mementos I did not want to glue or get lost.

You can see in the lower right picture above, I added a faux dog tag and a few other vintage inspired charms, put them on a chain and wound them in the books center. 

My Favorite page of the album, he is the one in the middle, looking straight into the camera as all the others around him carry on. I'm not sure to be honest if this was his going away picture as he hoped on a train to go to boot camp, but it sure looks like it could be. Regardless, my all time favorite picture ever.

Being an airplane mechanic, most of the pictures were of planes, John working on planes, John in planes, so I pulled out all the random vintage things that  had to do with flight and planes. These vintage travel stickers worked great.

A few pictures of the rest of the book. My husband now keeps this next to his flag from the memorial and every so often opens it up to take a peak. As we discover more of his time spent in the military, we are able to use the blank pages I included to record some of his moments and memories.

Thanks for stopping by today and a special shout out and Thank You to those who have served and are serving in Militaries Around the World, keeping their countries safe. Bless you.

To read more about Veterans Day visit; http://www1.va.gov/opa/vetsday/vetdayhistory.asp

Steampunk tag

Hello and happy Friday! My tag to share with you today is just ridiculously layered LOL I was having so much fun I just kept putting them on there :-D

So it's probably easier to list what I used rather than trying to explain what I did!  The background is fired brick, spiced marmalade and scattered straw distress ink, with some ink sponged through a Creative Expressions sequin waste mask and edged with some frayed burlap.  The other images are stamped in black archival ink or saddle brown StazOn.  The stamps are Tim Holtz, Inkadinkado and 7gypsies, with some doodling in white Posca pen.

I loved how the three gents looked raised up off the paper on foam squares when I went to a workshop at The Stamp Attic so had to try it again at home :)  They're inked with Old Paper Distress Ink to make them look a bit aged.  I also added some Andy Skinner-esque studs to the top of the tag for decoration.

I am also posting at The Stamp Attic today (here's a sneak peek!) so please call by and say hello :)

Happy scrapping and have a great weekend :)

Gayle xx