little Girls Blue Card

I am much more confident with regular distress ink than the Distress Oxides. I was playing with Distress Oxides trying to redress the balance a little. I did some wrinkle free distress with Cracked Pistachio and Vintage photo  then I blended through a couple of stencils with both colours trying to use brown on top of green and green on top of brown. I finished off with some archival ink stamping in Manganese blue and black, some of my yummy Tim Holtz Design tape and a couple of stamps from my ephemera box.

It still seemed a little dull and flat to me, could be the colours I used but I think after years of the glowing colours of blended distress ink I find the oxidised finish challenging. To try and fix this I mixed some Manganese Blue archival ink into Paperartsy Grunge paste. I used another stencil to create some texture on the smaller piece.

I scraped the left over paste onto the edges of the larger piece added some versamark over the dried paste and embossed it with a mixture of  Seth Apter's Deep Sea and Ranger Antiquities Verdigris embossing powder. Happy now with a  little more texture and shine, I assembled the card, added a sentiment and some Tim Holtz Paper dolls (I coloured their dresses with a touch of peacock Feathers Distress ink).

As I used lots of inventor and scientific stamps in the background I thought it would be good to have little girls rather than boys or gents. Challenging us all to any dream we imagine.

Hope you are all getting a little time to play this week. Thanks for your visit.

Stencils used are all Crafters workshop 6x6
Mini Numerals
Mini Ledger
Mini Harlequin

I am joining in the Vintage Journey Challenge for June stencil it
Also joining in with Creative Artiste Mixed Media at:
www.creativeartistemixedmedia.blogspot.com.au  Challenge 39

Also joining in with the Country View Challenge which is 'The Written Word'  I was thinking how much the words change the way we see these girls making us think about all their potential and the possibilities before them. Also makes me wonder did they fulfill all their dreams?. I do hope so.

Green Shadowbox with tintype

Here is another assemblage using my old studio portraits. This photograph is a tintype. The image is made by coating little tin metal plates with a light sensitive coating. They are like daguerreotypes, each one is unique and cannot be reprinted. I have put the photograph into a shadowbox frame, still intact, nothing glued or attached to it. The lady in this portrait is sterner than my imaginary seashell collector. I imagine her as a Victorian 'bluestocking,'  seriously engaged in studying botany and ornithology.

The box is lined with old dictionary paper from 7 gypsies. I used a fragment of paper from an old botany book. It is crumpled and coloured with distress ink to age it and add more green. A little K&Co bird sits in a real branch. In one corner there is a small piece of coral. This assemblage has a very spring feel to it and is now sitting on our fireplace.
Thanks for looking enjoy your weekend. x