Tuesday, February 10, 2015

A vintage romance...




Hello Friends!

I hope the winter weather is treating you well!  We have had numerous snowstorms over the last couple of weeks,  leaving us with plenty of beautiful white snow everywhere.  New England is a beautiful place to be in the winter!  (Especially if you have a wonderful hubby who takes care of all of the snow moving duties!)

My favorite snow day activity is to hole up in my craft room with multiple cups of tea, NCIS reruns, and an inky painty project!  Here is my most recent make, a romantic Valentine's Day Banner:


I feel the need to apologize for the photos. (I pretty much always feel the need to apologize for my photos.  Maybe I should add a permanent apology to my blog heading?)  I try really hard to use natural lighting, but at this time of year, there's not much natural light available, especially with 15 inches of snow covering my skylights! Please excuse the dark shadows cast by my flash.


My central item is an altered doily, left over from Christmas.  I used several layers of Distress Paints, and Distress Inks to take it from red to pink, As I was playing with it, I realized that it could be folded into a heart shape!  I included a wedding photo of my parents, layered, distressed and stitched onto cardstock, along with a layered ticket and some hearts cut with my Silver Bullet cutter from That's Scrap, Inc., and distressed with my T.H. Tonic edge distresser and Distress Inks. 

I made four mini bouquets with reclaimed paper flowers (they were part of an Ugly with a capitol U shadow box from the thrift store), a rosette cut with my Silver Bullet, and Distress inks and stains.   I threaded the stems through a hole pierced through the corks of the altered mini apothecary bottles.



It took layers and layers of Distress Paints and Inks,alcohol inks, and Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint to get these to look the way I wanted. 

As a final step, I inked up a Tim Holtz scroll stamp with Tree Bark Archival and rolled each bottle carefully across the stamp. 

Distress died seam binding was tied around the necks of the bottles.  After tying the bottles with a long length of Distress Inked bakers' twine, I tied on little flags of seam binding, and ribbon scraps which were, of course, inked with Distress Ink. 

I used lots of different brown Distress products on this project, including Tea Dye, Tree Branch, Brushed Corduroy and Walnut Stain.  The pinks I used are Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet and Tattered Rose. 

I am happy to be playing along in the Frilly and Funkie Be My Valen-twine challenge, and the Try It On Tuesday Add a Photo Challenge.

 I am also entering the A Vintage Journey It's Time to Play Tic-Tac-Toe challenge.  I used paint, ephemera and die cuts for three across. 

As always, thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day!

Elizabeth

19 comments:

  1. Such a lovely idea to make a banner and the pennant with your mum and dad's wedding is lovely

    Thank you for joining us at Try it on Tuesday

    Love Chrissie

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  2. A fine idea, indeed. Your creations are beautiful. Thank you for joining us at TioT.

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  3. First of all, bravo for NCIS...one of my favs as well! I love me some Gibbs! Secondly, I really had a giggle when I read the bit about your photos, natural light is spotty at best up here in Canada so I gave up a long time ago and built a light box. Silly winter abysmal days! haha. OK, now on to your wonderful banner! What a fabulous idea and I am just in love with your little apothecary bottles! Such an amazing project!

    It was such a treat to visit you today Elizabeth, Thank you so much for joining us at Frilly and Funkie for my 'Valen-Twine' challenge! Hugs, Pamellia DT :)

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    1. Thanks, Pamellia! Yup, that Gibbs is something!

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  4. Beautiful banner Elizabeth! I live in snowy Canada so I understand trying to get a good photo is hard! That's where editing is a life saver! Your banner shows up pretty as ever though so not to worry. Thanks for playing along with the Frilly and Funkie's Valen-Twine Challenge!

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    1. Thanks, Nicole. I grew up in Northern Maine, in sight of beautiful New Brunswick! Now I'm a Southern (New Hampshire) girl, LOL!

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  5. This is such a clever and unusual idea Elizabeth and I love it. Thank you for joining us at Frilly and Funkie. Jenny x

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    1. Thanks, Jenny. I sure had fun altering the bottles.

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  6. Very clever Elizabeth, cute, cute, cute banner. Great way to spend a snowy day. Although, I really wouldn't know about that as it is sunny and 75 here in Arizona.

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    1. Thanks, Sandy! It's sunny and 10 here, LOL! You can send some of that heat my way as soon in March, but for the rest of this month, I'm going to keep enjoying winter.

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  8. Hi Elizabeth.... What a great idea and I love the details you have incorporated. Thank you for joining in with us and for advising what items you chose from our Tic Tac Toe grid at AVJ.

    Annie x

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  9. SUPER COOL! Love that you are also under snow, cheered me right up! I take my things outside and get my socks wet to get that precious daylight! Hugs!

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    1. Thanks, Mitra! LOL about you getting cold wet feet for the sake of good photos! That's real dedication. I should be inspired to do the same, but it's too darned cold! (and more snow expected overnight!)

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Your kind comments are very much appreciated!