Marie's Closet and My Escape

When I got home late on Saturday, there was a package waiting for me.....Val's Marie Antoinette journal.  Val chose the theme of Marie's Closet, and we're to create an outfit for Marie to wear for any occasion we could imagine.  A few days before, I'd been messing around with the stencils left behind after cutting butterflies with my Big Kick.  I used them along with some color washes, inks, mica powder mists, etc. to make a background.  This inspired me to give Marie a "casual" dress for an afternoon spent catching butterflies in the gardens of Versailles.   Do I have any idea if people actually did that in those times?  No.  But it does seem like the sort of genteel activity that a queen might indulge in.

For this page, I took a sheet from Tim's Vintage Shabby paper stack (a blue one) and added some greens and purples, the other colors that appear in my butterfly background paper (which you'll see next). The paper butterflies were cut from a Cuttlebug embosslit.  I added tiers of lace for Marie's dress.  Her hat is just an oval of vellum with some tiny flowers and other bling.  The challenge was the butterfly net.  That I did with some jewelry wire, and attached the tulle with some sticky strip.  The bejeweled butterflies were part of the stash of Marie-inspired goodies that Daisy had sent along with her journal.  I've used a lot of what she sent in the pages I've done so far.  

What tickled me the most......I discovered that I actually own a stamp (from Quietfire) that says "papillon," which is French for.......you guessed it, butterfly!  I think you can see it stamped in gold in a few places.

For my journaling page, I took that background paper, added some vellum butterflies (which I inked, sprayed with a mica powder mist, and added stickles to), and attached my journaling (which was printed on parchment paper).

Val included patterns for little slippers to be used as her sign-in tags.  (Val is super organized and thinks of EVERYTHING!).  We were to decorate our shoe in the style of our pages, and this is what I came up with:

I'm very happy with these pages, and hope Val is too.

Now, over at PID, the weekly challenge theme is "My Favorite Escape."   For me, that has always been books.  This is a tag I did.  All images are from the PID shop.

If you're at all curious about the background, it will be featured on the PID blog tomorrow for Technique Tuesday.

It's only noon.  You have time.   Go make some art!

Gothic Arches

This week's challenge over at the Paper Imagery Design yahoo group ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/paperimagerydesign/) is Gothic Arches. I usually do ATCs, but this time I decided to try a skinny (3x5"). I created the background by inking up the inside of a Cuttlebug embossing folder before inserting the paper. After running the folder through my Big Kick I had a 3x5 that was not only embossed, but had an interesting distressed green color as well. A few sprays of Olive Vine Glimmer Mist finished it off. I stamped an architectural Beeswax Stamp image next, into which a PID arch transparency fit perfectly. Some musical notes and the large crow stamp are from Quiet Fire, and the small birds on top are from A Muse Stamps. I'm not exactly sure where the quote stamp came from.