Family Snapshots

Fragments strike fear into my heart, and it's because I always get into a mess with them. Too much glue, air bubbles, cat fluff caught between the fragment and the image (one of the joys of having two very helpful and artistic ragdoll cats who think fluff is the perfect embellishment for every occasion), so, with said cats banished from the room it's time to have another go.  Grungy Monday Challenge Number 21 over at  Studio L3 is all about fragments this week.  And as directed by the lovely Linda I have paid a visit to Mr Holtz's blog and his fab ideas for using Fragments which can be found there.
Here is my family tree, ( thank goodness they are not really my relatives because  Great Grandma and Auntie Joan in particular look rather scary).

I 've used a Wendy Vecchi Art Part frame which is covered with some Shabby Chic paper and inked with Antique Linen DI plus some splats in Antique Linen and Weathered Wood Distress Stains (they are such fun to do), the tree is by Wendy Vecchi and stamped in Coffee Archival Ink.  The outer frame is sanded and inked around the edges with Vintage Photo DI.  

I only had a few Fragments left , so thought I'd better avoid the etching technique until I've got more to play with as I know that I would probably melt quite a few before I got it right, so I used Alcohol Inks on Great Grandma, and somehow these are not quite right, but my technique was better by the time I got to the Family Tree fragment at the bottom of the frame.

Elsie is a packing tape transparency, how cool is that technique, I love it, it's like magic when the paper rubs away to reveal the image, her name and a little bit of spotty paper are sandwiched between the transparency and some sticky back canvas. 



The words are computer generated using an old typewriter font, and all the vintage images that I've used are from Tumblefish Studios, and,  just in case any of my family see this, none of you are quite as scary as Auntie Joan!

In a Mauve Mood

It's been over two weeks since my last post,and I don't even have the excuse that I've been on holiday, but my mojo has definitely been awol.  So today I've pulled myself together and made a tag, and as luck would have it it fits in with the themes for several challenges, Simon Says Show Some Bling,  Grungy Monday 20 (Distress Stickles Party) celebrating all things Tim Holtz, and this weeks Sunday Stamper Challenge which must include something white.

My tag is covered with some Shabby Chic Paper and lightly inked around the edges with Dusty Concorde DI, and then using some white acrylic paint the tag is stamped with the words from the Papillon set of stamps by Tim Holtz.  The diecut dressform is card and sticky backed canvas inked with Dusty Concorde and  Walnut Stain, and again I used some acrylic paint for the stamp on the canvas (I did go over this a bit with a white pen as the paint seemed to disappear into the canvas).  And then, although you can't really see it very well I used lashings of Rock Candy Distress Stickles on the dressform.

For the bling bit of this tag I've threaded a large 'diamond' onto the ribbon around the dressform neck, and also stuck two sparkley pins into the ruffles.

The braid at the bottom of the tag is from my bag of bits, and I've dyed some seam binding with Dusty Concorde for my ribbon.