Sunday 23 February 2014

Merly Impressions Scrapbook Challenge Feb 2014

The challenge on the Merly Impressions blog this month is to use stamps & stamping.  You can check out the challenge for yourself HERE.  The blog is full of inspiration.

I found this old photo of my nana, Elsie with her sisters.  I don't know their names or when this was taken, I'll be checking with my Mum later to see if she can shed any light on this.


I started with a white piece of 12 x 12 card stock, then applied pink and cream paint, in my usual random messy style.  It was a bit too 'fresh' for the photograph, so I slapped on some bronze, but that made the paper too dark for my liking, so out came the gesso and sponges/swiped that over the background till I was happy.  I'm very impatient so all the layers of paint were still wet while I was playing around with colour.  

Its all about the stamping and I think I went a bit stamp mad!!  Using bronze ink, I stamped the lace border for the base of the photo and then I went mad with some gold ink and my old favourite a crackle stamp, its so well used its split in places.  I've no idea where I got it from.  Back to the bronze ink and a swirly stamp for the rest of the border around the photo and the edges of the card stock.  I've used a kind of scribble stamp to further edge the card stock border.  

  For the final touch of stamping, I cut out some stamped and heat embossed butterflies onto old music paper, then smooched them over with a distress ink before stamping the butterflies onto the layout and overlaying with the cut outs.  I think the butterfly at the top should be a bit higher but its stuck down now!!

TFL  Lou x

3 comments:

  1. Hi Lou,

    Thank you for entering the Merly Challenge.

    Lovely layout and great stamping.

    Chrissy xXx

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  2. wonderful vintage feel and so soft, I love it. one question ... if you've used so much 'wet' stuff, how come your paper isn't all warped? I'd like to get more messy but didn't like what it did to my paper. Great Inspiration - thanks x

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  3. Tasa, thanks for leaving me a comment. The paper is slightly warped but firstly I use card stock rather than paper, and I've discovered that by spreading paint with a credit card it applies thinner layers, I then take a sponge over the top if I want to change the look of the texture. I hope this helps. Happy Crafting Lou x

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