Lucky Numbers

Hello all and welcome, with an especially big welcome to the newest followers - it's so lovely to have you along for the ride.

It's time for the new challenge at A Vintage Journey, and the brilliant Brenda is looking for Special Numbers - projects incorporating significant numbers, whether that's birthdays, anniversaries or lucky numbers.

As usual, we'd like to see Tim Holtz-style creations and/or products but the project can be anything at all.  And here's my starter for ten.

I came up with a burlap panel full of numbers, but there are three particular ones significant to me... and they all add up to the fact that I feel incredibly lucky in how my life works.











I got to play with one of the new Photobooth photos - and she takes the role of being "me".  And yes, that's the kind of happy smile I get to enjoy moment to moment in my work very often; certainly at the craft table or on visits around Craftyblogland enjoying your creations; and whenever I stop to count my blessings.













I also managed to get my hands on the new Small Talk stickers - yay for Country View Crafts! - and this one leapt straight out at me the moment I flicked through them.









I mounted it on a WordBand (one of the festive ones that I'm unlikely to use - 'holly jolly Christmas' or some such wording - just not me!) that I altered with alcohol inks - Mermaid, Mushroom and Pebble I think.











So, to my numbers...

The 24th, the number brad up in the top corner, also alcohol inked to within an inch of its life, is the date of my birthday in April.











And 46 is the number of years I'll hit when it comes around the next time, in a couple of months.  I had to double-check that was the right number when I found the Plaquette - I'm starting to lose count.  Not that it troubles me in the slightest... so far each decade has been better than the one before, so what's to worry?!

Down in the bottom corner, the Idea-ology Stencil Mark holding together some more ephemera fragments is my lucky number three.

Each of the ephemera pieces layered up behind the photo has numbers on it...












... and it's all mounted over the Bingo Texture Fade embossed onto Kraft Core in a lovely deep turquoise shade - sanded and torn to create a dimensional weathered look.

I gave the burlap panel a couple of rough coats of gesso, and then of course there's the rusty wire.











I wrapped some around the edges of the panel, as well as using it to fasten my WordBand to the centre of things.  Big thanks to Nina at It's Crafting Time for taking the trouble to source and stock the rusty wire on request - I'd be lost without it!













So that's my happy-go-lucky burlap panel for you - counting my blessings and sharing my significant numbers.

Hop over to A Vintage Journey to see the fantastic creations my team-mates have come up with to inspire you, and check out all the challenge details and travelling instructions while you're there.  We hope you'll come and share your Special Numbers with us this fortnight, and be in with a chance at the prize voucher generously sponsored by Country View Crafts.  See you there!

I'm a great believer in luck.  I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
Variously attributed to Coleman Cox, Samuel Goldwyn and even Thomas Jefferson

A man is rich in the proportion of the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau