Something beginning with S

Hello all, and welcome to the start of a new week and another new theme over at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge.  This week they are looking for "Something beginning with S", so I have a journal page Spread for you.

I'm thrilled to be guest-designing alongside the amazing Simon Says team for the month of June.

They always offer up such incredible inspiration, with such a variety of styles, techniques and ideas.  Once you're done here, do hop over and see what the others have been creating beginning with the letter S.

When my Idea-ology Portraits arrived - that's the large scale head-and-shoulders chap in the centre - I started by putting a few of them with some Pocket Cards as a first step in gathering ideas.  

This is the third of the portraits to get its expanded version.  So far they've all made their way onto journal spreads - one in this same altered book...

... and one in a square format journal.  But this is the first of the men to see any action.

The large scale of these Portraits busts makes them a really great focal point for a spread or a large tag, and then it's just a question of building the collage around them and, in my case, the story that tells itself as I'm making.

The Pocket Cards come in several different sizes and shapes, with the designs recurring in different scales, so they are great for coordinated collaging.

The ephemera here also includes elements from the new Memoir Ephemera pack (the Antiquités label for one), and the photographers advertisement panel behind his head is cut from some older 12x12 TH paper. 

There are Number Strips Snippets, and lots of my much-loved tiny Halloween Snippets labels.  Clearly, as a respected antiques dealer, he is meticulous in recording the provenance of every piece he buys, as well as keeping details of the journeys he personally makes to follow up each lead.

There's also one of the new Transparent Things butterflies, which I cruelly cut in half so that I could have half a wing on each side of the spread.  (It's always seemed to me one of the cruellest forms of collecting - those trays and trays of beautiful butterflies impaled on pins for the collector's pleasure.)

I didn't really mean the hinge clips to look like replacement bionic wings, but when I was taking the photos, I realised that that's what had happened.

These cheap clips were a dirty gold colour which really wasn't very appealing, so I used some Mushroom Alcohol Ink and Jet Black Archival Reinker to give them a more industrial look.

The Small Talk stickers add some words - you know I always like to have some words somewhere.  As always, the right phrases just seemed to appear... 

I don't remember noticing either of these before, but suddenly there they were.  And for a buyer and seller of antiques, the words could hardly be more appropriate.... don't you agree?

You can also see the crackle paste I applied fairly randomly over my gesso'd book pages.  I used various inks and paints to give the whole thing a grungier, vintaged look, as well as the Design Tape Trim which just adds another delicious layer of tiny detail to the spread.

A Muse Token and a Number Token give another little metallic lift to the whole thing.  I certainly think he has the knowledge necessary for the career he's chosen, and he looks a trustworthy chap to me.  

If you're looking to invest in some antiques, you could definitely do worse than to avail yourself of his services!

So I hope you like this journal SPREAD, and I hope your brains are now teeming with things beginning with S!  But if they're not, you can always hop over to the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge where the team will give you another nudge.  (Or check out the quote at the end of this post!!!)

As always the challenge is generously sponsored by the Simon Says Stamp store...

... and there's a $25 gift voucher available for one lucky, randomly-picked winner, as well as spotlight mentions if your project is chosen by the Design Team members.

I hope you have fun with your Ss, and I'll see you again soon.  Happy crafting, all!

The shelves of this store are stacked with stock. You will find a steamship, a sailing ship, and even a spaceship. There are several sorts of shoe and scores of signs and symbols. There is a sketch of a squinch, a selection of shells (not all from the sea), a siamang settled on a seat, a sponge to be studied, and sundry stuff suspended from strings. In all I included 1,234 Ss for you to see.

From The Ultimate Alphabet by Mike Wilks

Flea Market Finds

Hello all!  I'm delighted to be here to share some altered playing cards, created with the help of the gorgeous new Flea Market Finds collection by Cathe Holden for Spellbinders.  They approached me to see if I would be willing to create something with the new products and, when I saw them, I very quickly said, "Yes, please!".

So here is my quartet of playing cards - showcasing some of the papers, stamps, stickers and printed die-cuts available.  You can find links to the products throughout the post if you'd like to get a closer look at them.  (And - full disclosure - if you buy anything after clicking through from those links, I will earn a small commission - it won't cost you anything extra though!)

Flea Market Finds is the perfect name for the collection.  There are vintage advertisements and posters and cigarette cards, stamps and seals, decorative packaging, shipping labels and lots more, all gathered together and full of nostalgic Americana vibes - think Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons.

(In fact, I know already that some of this ephemera will be making its way into my next project at the dollshouse museum, Small Worlds, if I ever get round to it... it's going to be a store called Brimble's Mercantile which I'm basing on Ike Godsey's General Store in The Waltons - though I'll probably set it in a slightly more prosperous era than the depressed 1930s as it was on the show!).

Anyway, back to the playing card quartet!  I started by covering them with a vintage ledger design from the Neutrals Palette Sampler paper pad.

I stamped some of the glorious Antique Adverts stamps, tapping a combination of Archival Night and Ground Espresso onto the stamps to give some colour variation as well as a vintage look. 

I'm in love with that jug (pitcher, I suppose would be the correct terminology!) - that's why it turns up twice.

And then, without too much thought, I grabbed a few stickers from the Etiquettes sticker pad to start the collaging.  I've never really been much of a one for stickers, but these could convert me.

From there, I added in some printed die-cuts, from both the Home Arts Miscellany and the Happy Thought Miscellany... and some of my much-loved poppy and aquilegia seedheads.  Aquilegia is also known both as Granny's Bonnet and as Columbine, which seemed to work well with the nostalgic vintage Americana vibe.

Then I let loose with some crackle paste roughly applied in fairly random spots...

... some white spatter...

... and some gentle inking around the edges.

And where would I be without my fine twine?!

They didn't feel quite finished, and then I had a brainwave.  I used the Circle Label Icons stamps stamped onto the offcuts of the original ledger paper to create individual buttons to top the twine-tied flower bundles.  

That seemed to do the trick - just the right touch of added dimension to give them depth and detail.

So there you have it... some vintage Americana collaging with this lovely new ephemera and paper collection by Cathe Holden.  

I enjoy haunting flea markets, but I can't get to the American ones very easily (!) - so it's wonderful to have another way to get to play with these charming vintage adverts and images.

I'm sure I'll be back with some more Flea Market Finds soon... do head over to Spellbinders to take a look at the full collection - there are so many lovely things to play with.  

For now, I'll wish you a wonderful weekend and happy crafting all!

For as long as we could remember, Ike Godsey's general merchandise store had been the social center of our community. Friendships were forged over loaves of bread, the place was a clearing-house for news, rumor and often as not, gossip. Adventure in those days was having a nickel to spend and time to gaze into the candy counter for as long as we liked before making a selection.

From The Waltons TV series 7, episode 18, written by E.F. Wallengren

With those final buttons floating Up In The Air above the rest of the collage, I'd like to enter this as an out-of-left-field response to that challenge theme at the Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge this week.

Soothing your senses

Hello all!  It's time for another contribution to the Summer Countryside theme I'm hosting at Art Journal Journey this month.  There are already so many fabulous entries that I'm just about keeping up with so far - thank you so much - and I'm looking forward to many more.  For today's page I'm soothing my senses with flowers and butterflies again.