Bon Voyage!

Hello and welcome to all... especially to the new followers - it's so great to have you here.
I've a card to share with you today - a holidays-from-the-past, glamorous voyage across an alcohol ink ocean!

I was inspired by several challenges - it seems that in August, everyone's thoughts turn to holidays and travelling!




I really enjoyed making the individual elements of this card.  I played with my new alcohol inks for the first time... only minimally, to start finding out what they can do - but still, great fun, and a completely different look from any of the other inks I've used up til now.  Yum - glossy!

The base of the card I decorated with stamps from the 7 Gypsies Legends set - a wonderful set of words and images from antique maps (I love antique maps!).  The texture detail is from a Tattered Angels set, stamped in Weathered Wood.  I love that it looks so antique, and also slightly oceanic.

I've just been producing Postcards on an industrial scale for the decorations at my brother's wedding so I was quite in the swing of it, and they seemed the perfect accompaniment for the gorgeous photo I found online.  

I love distressing the papers and photos, ageing them so that they get that vintage look.  Whether it's with inks or the Tim Holtz Paper Distresser, or rolling and ripping the papers, I love the extra life and dimension it adds to the paper.

I had a lovely time ageing the photo... applying touches of vintage photo with the blending tool; running the ink pad along creases and tears; and giving it a very light spritz of water, wiped away with paper towel to give the 'developing' spots.  It's also had some attention from the Paper Distresser round the edges, of course.


The luggage label started as a large kraft tag, which I had to trim down to fit the card.  I inked it heavily with vintage photo, added a couple of 7 Gypsies Avignon stamps and gave it a good scrunching for a leathery look.  I highlighted the creases with some Walnut Stain, and replaced the rather dull string belonging to it with some rather prettier neutral twine.

You can click on the pictures below for some close ups of each quarter of the finished card. Although it seemed a shame to cover so much of the alcohol ink "sea", I love how it just peeps out between the elements.

 

I used black Staz-On ink to stamp the tiny Oceanus stamp from the 7 Gypsies Legends set onto some ribbon from my stash and placed it over the lovely lace I got in CZ.

Thank you so much for stopping by today... I hope you've enjoyed taking this vintage holiday with me...  I just want to say thank you for all the generous comments - it's such a joy to read them, and I do always try to repay the visit if I know you've been here!

For now, I wish you a wonderful August day, whatever you're doing with it.  If travelling, I wish you fair winds, fair weather and smooth sailing (in whatever form of transportation)...

I'm entering this in the following:
Sugar Creek Hollow's challenge - Vintage Travel
The Artistic Stamper's August challenge - Holidays
Simon Says Stamp and Show, who would like to know about our Favourite Technique - distressing/ageing
Crafty Boots are challenging us to be inspired by Postcards
Tando are having a Travel challenge this month

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go.  I travel for travel's sake.  The great affair is to move.
Robert Louis Stevenson

Travelling is a brutality.  It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.  You are constantly off balance.  Nothing is yours except the essential things - air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
Cesare Pavese