Golden Memories

Hello everyone... Well, it's been another week of sneak peeks here at Words and Pictures so far, but I'm here with an actual project today!  I'm not sure it's really me, but it's nice to experiment occasionally.

It's another canvas with a combination of Artistic Outpost stamps and Pion Papers (like the romantic canvas of last week).

This time I've used the wonderful Bluebird plate with some of the Pion Vintage Garden papers.

I started with a piece of white corrugated card, but things started to gather and grow, and in the end it needed a larger canvas as the base.

The Artistic Outpost images are stamped on some of my tea/coffee-dyed tags.  I love these birds over the music manuscript...













... and they seemed perfect with the little Pion birds.













The bluebird boy is fast becoming one of my favourite images (he put in an appearance on my little hanging recently), and I edged his tag with some of the lovely typescript stamp from the same set.












That text also appears on the other little tags...















... and on the bunting in the top corner.










The flowers are by Wild Orchid, layered with some cheesecloth...













... and a little heart cut from the white corrugated card - inked of course - to link with the other side of the canvas.











I cut some kraft glassine with the Tim Holtz Doily, and also layered in some other pieces of kraft glassine in various places to add a bit of depth to the colour palette.













I added the lovely Thinking of You stamp to this little postcard from the papers.












And I just love this tiny little bird on the stamp...











I altered one of the Idea-ology bookplates with some layers of Distress Paint, wiping back and adding layers until I was happy with the look.

My trusty Hero Arts alphabet was pressed into action for the word Memories, stamped on another bit of tea/coffee stained tag, to go inside it.

There are doilies layered in too, and where they overlapped the edge, I folded them around to add decoration to the edges of the canvas.

Also around the edge I added music manuscript washi tape.















I not only like the look of this, but it came in very handy for securing the bunting too!









So there are my Golden Memories - hope you enjoyed the tour.  Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll be back touring around Craftyblogland with a bit more time soon, I hope...

Don't forget you've still got time to join in with the Artistic Outpost Referral Program this month.

All you need is at least one AO image to qualify for the prize draw.  Hope to see you there, or elsewhere very soon!






Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.
Haruki Marukami

True nostalgia is an ephemeral composition of disjointed memories.
Florence King

I'd like to enter this in the following:
At the Wild Orchid Challenge where they are playing Blues and/or Purples
A second entry at this month's Hobby House Challenge where the theme is Vintage
At the Fashionable Stamping Challenge they are looking for Flora and Fauna

Train Track Triptych

Hello all, happy Sunday to you!  Thanks so much for stopping by today... especially if you've done it twice - this is the second post of the day (the other's here)!

I've a triptych to share with you this time, inspired by the wonderful Artistic Outpost SteamPunk stamp set, with the emphasis on the Steam!  For work, I sometimes live in Stratford upon Avon and every Sunday during the summer, a traditional steam train sets off from the station there for enthusiasts to take a ride into the steamy mists of nostalgia.

I've been down to see it depart a couple of times (including taking my young niece and nephew), but even from my tiny little courtyard garden, I could always hear it chuff chuffing away, and then the oh-so-evocative whistle as it picked up speed.  It's one of the most romantic sounds, the sound of escape and travelling; the American train whistle does it too, calling you to vast landscapes and wider horizons.  So this is a triptych tribute to the "Golden Age of Steam".

First a front and back...

On the front you get a traditional vintage scene, and on the back a much more fragmented, abstract view of the steam locomotives, with tissue tape 'train tracks' cutting right through it.  

The Artistic Outpost stamps are delicious.  First I stamped some lovely circles from the Whimsical Melange set onto white paper.  

Then I did my favourite tissue paper stamping technique with the station and train (twice, so that I could have one going in each direction for symmetricality on the triptych), and stuck them over the circle background, nice and 'wrinklily'!  

I used a blending tool to add Vintage Photo, Weathered Wood and Stormy Sky DIs.  

I already knew the sentiment I wanted to add, a snippet of a poem by Hart Crane, so evocative... and (with my Words hat on) I just love those alliterative Ws, so I lined them up over one another to draw the eye, and therefore hopefully liven up the lips as you speak them.

 
To live up to the words of the poem, I added some additional puffs of steam by loading a paintbrush with white acrylic, and just a touch of mushroom paint on one edge.

The tops of the panels are cut using the Brackets On the Edge Die, and the gears are TH Idea-ology ones.  

I wanted them to echo the circles hovering in the ghostly background under the tissue paper, but with an even more engineering-y, industrial look.

On the reverse of the triptych I collaged torn pages from an old children's encyclopedia (another casualty from the massive house clearing that's going on in preparation for leaving the family home of 40 years).  

There was a double page spread illustration of a steam locomotive, so I made that my central image but broke it up across the triptych.

I stamped some more of the Whimsical circles, quite randomly, added some stencilled polka dots, and inked, all the time echoing the colour blending from the front side from browns at the base to blues at the top.  

I gave it a little spritz of Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls Mist to get a vintage lustre.

For the hinges, I wanted to create some "train tracks" running across the back of the triptych.  I used some Tim Holtz tissue tape, the calendar, which has the straightest lines of the tapes I've got, so making the best train tracks.









It also has something of a train timetable feel, as well as marking the years that have passed since the great steam trains ruled those tracks.  I stuck the tape to some kraft paper, inked it, and gave it a good spritzing with Perfect Pearls in Pewter and Heirloom Gold.

So that's my train track triptych tribute to 'the Iron Horse'... somehow travelling on trains these days just isn't quite the same.  I had such fun playing with these glorious stamps... you'll definitely be seeing more of them!!

Since I'm in Stratford for most of next week (no steam trains this time of year, sadly), I won't be able to do any crafting (aaagh!), but I should be able to catch up on some blog visiting.  Looking forward to seeing you soon somewhere in Craftyblogland!

I'm entering this in the following:
The Artistic Outpost September challenge which is Anything Goes with an AO stamp
Second post of the day, and second entry for the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge to Tape It Up
Hels Sheridan in her guise as the Sunday Stamper is inviting us Behind the Mask to use Masks or Stencils on our projects
I know it's slightly more Steam than Punk, but I'd like to offer it up for the Happy Daze challenge Steampunkery too



Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson: you find the present tense, but the past perfect!
Owens Lee Pomeroy

The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before.
G.K.Chesterton

A Proper Gent

Hello all... I've been drooling over the Vintage Gentleman Kit available at Vintage Page Designs for nearly a whole month now.  I'd finally decided to give in and go shopping, only to find that they were on holiday - thwarted again!

But I still wanted to enter the challenge over at their blog this month which is entitled simply 'Gentlemen'.  I've created a number of shabby chic albums (some of which you've seen, and some of which are still to be revealed), but mostly in gentle blues, greens and the occasional mauve/pink.  So what a good opportunity to go for something more manly.  I had done a toilet roll mini-album in browns and blues using the BoBunny Weekend Market collection of papers, but I wanted something on a slightly larger scale (it's a 6x6) - so here it is:

I'm imagining a smoking jacket, pipe, library kind of gentleman here... and definitely of a certain vintage!

For the cover I used a paper from the Papermania Persimmon collection, and distressed it to get a very old wallpaper look - the sort he might have in his study or library.

I sanded it with an emery board (nail files are very useful craft tools), and blended on some Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

The corners are adorned with the corner flourish from the Tim Holtz Journey collection, double stamped in Vintage Photo for extra dimension.

The tiny tabs, cut using the TH die Tiny Tabs and Tags, have Weekend Market papers front and back, sandwiched onto card for some dimension and UTEE'd (Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel) for strength.

The lock and key are from the BoBunny trinket set which is part of the WM array, and it's all strung on to the book ring using one of TH's ball chains.

I made a black backboard for the lock, and edged it with Copper embossing powder.  I used the same embossing powder to transform my silver book rings into copper ones, so that they'd suit the look of the album.

Throughout the album, I've used the Weekend Market papers combined with the Persimmon set, as well as adding music manuscript and plainer handmade papers of my own.  I'm always worried that I wouldn't want to cover the amazing designer papers with journalling or photographs, but I realise that's pretty much the whole point of an album... so I try to create other spaces for journalling or as photo mats which will allow the papers to still shine through.

Let's take a quick flick through the album...

I like to create each double page spread as a single 'whole' area, so that each time you turn a page you find a new environment.

The flourishes most of the way through the album are from Whimsy Stamps, a set called Lavish Flourishes.



Quite often, I've embossed them with copper embossing powder, to get a lovely burnished sheen.  Love the wooden rulers from the BoBunny papers, so I've created my own version on the reverse of the tags using TH's stamp from the Seamless Experience set.





I can certainly imagine that Sir Jasper (oh, look at that, he has a name...) has one of those glorious globes in his study, and probably an astronomical one too.  This next spread pays homage to that, with a photo pad or journalling space created within the gentle curves of lines of latitude and longitude.






The next spread has a large pull-out tab, one side of Weekend Market, and one of actual sheet music, stamped with flourishes and edged with Vintage Photo.  There are die-cut hearts to match, glazed with Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint.









I'm sure that, if not a musician himself, Sir Jasper is a keen connoisseur of fine music - chamber music I think, or possibly opera... he might, in this pocket, keep mementos of performances he has attended... a ticket, a programme, the lace handkerchief of the young soprano from the chorus...?

The next one is a little ornate for a man you may think, but a gentleman of Sir Jasper's standing and character will always appreciate beauty in his surroundings.  A fine architectural flourish such as this one, provided by the TH Scrollwork On the Edge die would perhaps be reminiscent of the ironwork of his wrought iron gates.  And rather than lace, let us consider it the mouldings upon the very fine ceiling of his Great Hall.




This page
opens as well, to reveal a pocket in which Sir Jasper might keep records of his latest shooting party.

An elegant gold and brown affair here, a dark rich brown like the leather of Sir Jasper's favourite ottoman, or his favourite wingback chair, with the gold stud work.  (Additional flourishes provided by the Whimsy stamps and some gold acrylic paint.)







The stripes on this spread are a little rakish, like Sir Jasper's younger brother (hmm, let's see... Bertram?) who is, as the phrase has it, 'half flash, half foolish', but very fond of a dashing waistcoat.


There are copper-embossed flourishes, and tags with one of my favourite TH stamps, the pen nibs from the Curious Possibility set.





I shouldn't think Sir Jasper gets many letters written while Bertie is staying - unless they are bills of payment for the debts his brother has incurred.

A retreat to the music room, then, so tastefully wallpapered (BoBunny), there to listen dutifully to the daughters of his near neighbours, the Cottingtons, as they demonstrate their musical prowess... or lack of it.

Still a gentleman will always be attentive and complimentary to the gentler sex.

And then this last one, with much more delicate wallpaper that I love (Papermania), makes a return to the rulers and measures - some of my favourite vintage objects.


I work, in a very old-fashioned way, with a wooden ruler myself - not only that, it has a list of the Kings and Queens of England all the way down the back.









I feel sure that Sir Jasper would approve of my learning the history of the nation as I'm crafting!




Thank you for joining me for this little tour of Sir Jasper's domain - apologies, I think it's the Whimsy stamps that must have induced the whimsical approach... I've been infected by the Lavish Flourishes in my writing too.  Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.  I hope you'll drop by again soon, just to check my pulse, perhaps?!

I'm entering this (though Sir Jasper would probably disapprove of vulgar competition - oh, hush now) in Vintage Page Designs' July challenge Gentlemen, played, of course, by Marquis of Queensberry Rules... okay, that's enough now - I'm going to bed!

He was the product of an English public school and university.  He was, moreover, a modern product of those seats of athletic exercise.  He had little education and highly developed muscles - that is to say, he was no scholar, but essentially a gentleman.
H. Seton Merriman

A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.
Oscar Wilde