Last Days of Summer

Hello all, I'm so happy you've dropped by... it's a wonderfully sunny, though still slightly chilly, early Autumn day here, so it seems the perfect time to share this project with you, inspired by Crafty Individuals' challenge this month "The Last Days of Summer".

The stamp set is, of course, by Crafty Individuals, and all the stamped images are from the one set, bar the decorations on the large butterflies' wings.  

The little girl at the front has, however been deprived of the teddy bear she usual holds, and has been given a butterfly to admire instead!

All the children are stamped in Archival Sepia, and just gently shaded with Antique Linen DI.  Then I put some Tattered Rose Distress Stain Marker ink onto my acrylic block and, using plenty of water, painted a slight blush onto their skin wherever it was visible.




Finally, I gave them a coat of UTEE, just to strengthen them, since some of the cutting is delicate, and also to make the colours a little more vibrant.

I mounted the older girl and boy on padded tape, and the girl at the front is on some leftover packaging foam to bring her to the foreground.






The butterflies are a slight adaptation of the ones I created for an earlier project.  They're still made of leftover bread wrappers, and cut using the Tim Holtz Butterflight On the Edge die (which means you have to do some extra trimming to get whole butterflies!).

They're stamped using a Prima Almanac wallpaper design of tiny flowers, then doubled up for extra flutter effect, and glued with Glossy Accents.



The background uses a resist technique.  I stamped the little butterflies and dragonfly from the CI set repeatedly onto some white cardstock and clear-embossed them. 








I then painted over them using some Cosmic Shimmer paint I got in That's Crafty's sale.

This colour is the romantically named 'Sahara Mist'.  It does indeed shimmer cosmically, but also gave a lovely sunset sky effect.  You can get really varying intensities of colour depending on the amount of water you use.






The whole thing is actually made in the lid of one of the little boxes I got for a pittance in one of the Czech cheapy shops.  I had covered the whole thing in regular masking tape, and I used some more of the Sahara Mist on the back.

Round the edges of the frame (lid!), inside and out, I used some TH calendar tissue tape, to mark the passing of the summer days.

And I cut some white jute ribbon in half lengthwise, and adhered it to the front of the frame, edging it with Vintage Photo DI.











The sentiment from the same set captures exactly the mood of the children's faces and bodies - so full of wonder... it really is a lovely stamp set!

Finally, some late summer roses, paper mulberry ones, but better than nothing!  I love the colour of these, very close to my favourite Peace roses.  They're tied with some frayed natural twine to tie in with the vintage colours of the whole piece.

Thank you so much for spending some time here at Words and Pictures.  And I'm delighted to welcome the new followers - it's great to have your company on the journey.




I do hope you get to enjoy some of this wonderful world this weekend!

I'm entering this in the Crafty Individuals challenge The Last Days of Summer
Frilly and Funkie's current challenge The Great Outdoors
I'd like to add it as another entry for the Crafty Cardmakers challenge Winged Things
Heck of a Challenge are on Anything Goes as their first monthly challenge

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. 
James Dent

September
The breezes taste
Of apple peel.
The air is full
Of smells to feel-
Ripe fruit, old footballs,
Burning brush,
New books, erasers,
Chalk, and such.
The bee, his hive,
Well-honeyed hum,
And Mother cuts
Chrysanthemums.
Like plates washed clean
With suds, the days
Are polished with
A morning haze.
John Updike