Vintage Ancestors, Adventurous and Murderous

My friend Lee (who I hope to actually meet some day) from Australia has been a part of all the collaborative art journals I've done over the past five years or so.  I love the way she started off her Vintage Ancestors book, with a tale of two young sisters who somehow turn into the murderous seniors that Arsenic and Old Lace was based on.  All ficticious of course, but what fun!  Here are Lee's pages, which I will build upon to continue the story.

So, Lee asks the question, how did these young girls become killers, and what in their background led them down such a path?

I introduced their father, one E.J. Jones, who just so happened (according to me) to be the inspiration for another film character, the one and only Indiana Jones.  Boy, did I have a blast concocting this story, and the artwork that accompanies it.

 

 

This particular Dr. Jones was an explorer, working in rain forests throughout the world, in search of medicinal plants.  Along the way he discovered some poisonous ones as well.  Oh, and he was always accompanied by his two young daughters.  Hmmmm.....could there be a connection there to Lee's story?

 

Here are closer looks at the pages.

 

 

 

 

 

The backgrounds were made by first scraping several earth tone colors of fluid acrylics over the paper.  Then some stamping (stamps by Dyan Reaveley and Wendy Vecchi).  The photo of Dr. Jones is in a holder made from Tim Holtz's cabinet card die.  The leaves and birds were cut from a Sizzix decorative strip called Birds and Branches.  The label holder is a very old Stampin' Up accessory that started out in life a vanilla color, but was distressed to look rusty with nothing more than acrylic paint (black and shades of brown).

 

The story was printed on vellum.  I made the little envelope for the specimen (Specimen B stamp by Wendy Vecchi, by the way) from deli wrap.

 

I added the number tab (I believe it is from a 7 Gypsies set) because Lee had an index tab on her page, and I thought it would be a nice element to continue.

 

In mid January this book goes to Pat, and I can't wait to see what my creative pal does with the continuing story of the surprisingly (or not) homicidal siblings.