A Faded Beauty?

Hello all, and welcome!  Don't adjust your sets, folks: yes, you are at Words and Pictures, but yes, you are seeing flowers, pearls and pastel pinks.  What can I say?  Sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles... 

Today's tag is my Design Team offering for the new challenge at Fussy and Fancy, where we'd like you to play with Pearls and Flowers.  Pink is not compulsory, it's just where I ended up!

Do take some time to go and check out my fellow DT's projects; there's lots of different inspiration, and we'd love you to play along.

I started with a sheet of K&Company paper which was just leaping out of the pile at me - my head was probably thinking, "Well, if we're going to go girly, we might as well go the whole hog".

But I wanted to shabby it up a bit.  With the vintage image, and the phrase which was already swirling around in my head - 'the flower of her youth' - this was clearly setting out to be a memento of days long gone, memories of a beauty perhaps fading with the years.









So, to the shabbying...  I used Tim Holtz's Picket Fence Distress Stain to give the paper a whitewashed look, and edged the tag with Tea Dye and Vintage Photo inks.  I also used an emery board to sand away the paper at the edges, and across the centre, to get a really well-worn, shabby chic look to it.






The flowers in the paper still have beauty, but it's been dulled a little by the passing of the years.

You can see the before and after of the effects in this photo.










I used some more of the whitewashed paper in the BigShot with TH's Tattered Flower Garland, and assembled my flowers.











They also got the ink treatment, and a good spritz of Perfect Pearls Mist in - what else? - Pearl, and I added some tiny pearl beads to the centres.

I'm not generally a very flowery crafter - but I do like the end result here...







The little green postcard is from a Prima 6x6 pad - Nature Garden, I think it is - shabbied up with the TH Paper Distresser and some inking... a memento of youthful romantic correspondence, treasured in a lonely old age.









The image is one I found on one of my Google image searches, and printed out.  Apart from the usual distressing, I also used Distress Markers to tint the photo slightly, for the blush of youth.







The ribbons are some of my fruit tea-dyed ones, one with a scrunching of Victorian Velvet DI added for extra blush.











At the bottom, I've again borrowed the idea from Julia's Stuff of the gorgeous UTEE'd lace.  I did also stamp into it this time, which has given it some added texture - but I think I need a bit more practice to make it zing the way Julia does!

All the elements are assembled on a little paper doily, also given the Vintage Photo treatment, its fresh whiteness dimmed by passing time.

So, there you have it - Pearls and Flowers - out of my usual creative zone, but that's the fun of the game!  And it's so strange how these things work out: Fussy and Fancy have had this challenge timetabled for months, and I made most of this a couple of weeks ago - but it fits right in with Simon Says Stamp and Show's challenge to Just Add Pearl this week... coincidence?  Or the Universe moving in mysterious ways?!

Anyway, thank you so much for stopping by, and I hope you've found some inspiration on your visit.  Do head over to Fussy and Fancy to see what the rest of the team have come up with; they would love to have you visit and leave them a little love too!   And if you decide to play along, we'll come and return the favour...  I love how Craftyblogland operates on such a wonderful cycle of positive reinforcement, don't you?!

Faded the flower and all its budded charms,
Faded the sight of beauty from my eyes,
Faded the shape of beauty from my arms,
Faded the voice, warmth, whiteness, paradise!
Vanish'd unseasonably!
John Keats

The flowers anew, returning seasons bring, 
But faded beauty has no second spring.
Ambrose Philips

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.
Miss Piggy

I'm entering this in the following:
Simon Says Stamp and Show who are asking us to Just Add Pearl
There's a Bingo board at Everybody Art Challenge - I'm playing a diagonal line of Flowers, Lace, Ribbon
At Crafty Boots they would simply like us to create a Tag or Invitation
Sugar Creek Hollow are looking for Texting - Vintage Style, with some text on display