It is with great pleasure I welcome the fabulous Paula Cheney as our first Guest Creative Guide in year 2 of our vintage journey. Those of you who know Paula will already be aware of her amazing projects, her love of all things 'Tim' and her incredible creative talents. Whether she is using inks, paints, junk, dies or fabrics she can turn out the most inspiring works of art that get us wanting to see and know more. Well today you have more - but Paula and I have a 'game' for you to play too - read on to see how it unfolds.
Hello everyone! I am grateful for the opportunity to be here today on A Vintage Journey! Maybe a little background information is in order for those who don’t know me. I have worked in the scrapbooking/mixed media industry for almost 10 years now. The last three for Tim Holtz, as his Creative Coordinator for Tim Holtz brands. That means I do a little bit of everything! It might be creating something for a magazine ad in the morning, move on to design ideas for idea-ology by lunch and finish out with a sewing project for Tim’s fabric line, Eclectic Elements. Really a jack of all trades around here! I also write a blog called One Lucky Day where I test out product, share what I make, and also share my love of junk!
I live on the central coast of California (half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles), about 20 minutes from the Pacific Ocean. I have been married to my husband Jay for 28 years. He is very supportive of all of my crazy ideas and would you believe, he does all my Sizzix cutting for the classes I teach. He even has his own Vagabond machine.
I’m also a Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders junky. I don’t know what we’d do without Masterpiece and Masterpiece Mysteries on Sunday evenings! In a few short days I am taking my first ever trip to London, so I thought I better include a little bit of the UK in today’s piece...I’m sure you will spot it right away when you see it.
I started this project over on my blog, One LuckyDay...I hope you will pop over to see the beginning steps of how I painted the blossoms. Now lets continue on to see the finishing work and the final project...
I wanted to add a metal Wordband to the piece but also wanted to change up the color of the band. I did that by pouncing gold alcohol ink over the top. Once dry, I added Picket Fence Distress Paint over the debossed lettering (wiping away the excess), then finishing with Iced Spruce Distress Paint on each end.
As I said before, my frame is vintage. It already had two large eye screws for hanging (no wire though) on the back of the fame. I decided to use these to my benefit, by stretching an idea-ology Elastic Band across the frame. As you can see, I slid the Wordband onto the elastic before I fed the barbed end of the elastic into the second eye screw.
Once I had the Elastic Band in place, I created a focal point to coordinate with the background. I mounted a piece of ephemera (Emporium pack) onto chipboard. Then added a couple layers of cheesecloth (what you don’t see if that I sewed the cheesecoth to a scrap of paper I dug out of the garbage can). Cheesecloth is way too wonky to control without a stable surface to stitch it to. Once the sewing was complete, I cut away any paper that was showing beyond the edges of the cheescloth. I added a Photobooth photo to the center of the stitching. This photo was already tinted so no need to do that here (maybe that is a blog post for another day). I also added the phrase, “be your beautiful self” from the Small Talk sticker set. The Mini Numerals are enhanced with Iced Spruce paint and gold/mushroom Alcohol Ink.
Please note: I did not glue any of these pieces to the main chipboard until I got the correct spacing of the elastic band in the next step.
Once the chipboard backing is in the frame, you can gauge where to mount the center picture. Once added to the board (I used 1/2” Wonder Tape), I was able to add a skinny strip of foam tape along the bottom half of the Word band.
Peel the backing paper off and adhere the foam tape right below the Photobooth photo (it should fit up nice a snuggy against the picture).
My idea was to use the Elastic as a “clothesline” for trinkets. I added a Heart Charm and some vintage mother of pearl buttons to two Loop Pins and hung them on the line.
Now just secure the backing and we’re done! That was a lot of words for a very easy project! So many techniques here to try. I sure hope you will!
Well, what can I say? This is a most gorgeous frame Paula and as you say full of wonderful ideas and techniques and I for one have just fallen in love with the washing line idea. Oh I so want to try that on a project soon. Thank you so much for sharing such a special project with us and for joining us over at One Lucky Day too.
I hope you have the most wonderful time in the UK when you come over and enjoy some great sightseeing and shopping. Just a shame you aren't teaching here ...... maybe 'one lucky day' we will have that opportunity.
It's over to you our lovely readers, have fun visiting Paula to see how she started this off and let us know how you enjoyed the excursion.
We hope to see you Monday when our fourth (and last) Creative Guide for this month will share her ideas and inspiration for our monthly recipe of product, technique, colour and substrate which for March has been idea-ology, spritz and flick, peacock feathers and tag. I hope you have been enjoying all the different projects that have been emerging.
Take care and have a wonderful weekend.
hugs Brenda and the Team xxxx
I hope you have the most wonderful time in the UK when you come over and enjoy some great sightseeing and shopping. Just a shame you aren't teaching here ...... maybe 'one lucky day' we will have that opportunity.
It's over to you our lovely readers, have fun visiting Paula to see how she started this off and let us know how you enjoyed the excursion.
We hope to see you Monday when our fourth (and last) Creative Guide for this month will share her ideas and inspiration for our monthly recipe of product, technique, colour and substrate which for March has been idea-ology, spritz and flick, peacock feathers and tag. I hope you have been enjoying all the different projects that have been emerging.
Take care and have a wonderful weekend.
hugs Brenda and the Team xxxx
