A lot of vintage books

Ooo, bad blogger! I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since I posted. I have been busy with classes. My weekly seniors class started up this week, plus last week Thurs. & this week Thurs. I had classes in my home as well. And SCS challenges have been pretty much ignored while I've been making samples and cutting cardstock for classes. But last night when I saw today's inspiration challenge, a couple of the samples really called my name and I knew I had to play. And play I did -- all morning -- just to get one card done. Of course, I had to take a short break to feed the family.

I started with this inspiration piece. I love the old book pages and music incorporated into the background and knew that's what I wanted to do with mine. And of course, the blue birds were singing sweetly to me... haha.

Now, the process. I started by tearing some pages from an old book, an old encyclopedia, and old music. I decided to use Mod Podge to adhere them to my card, but... I was impatient... After gluing them all down, I didn't wait long enough for the stuff to dry thoroughly and when I stamped on it, some of the paper came off on my stamp... grrrrr! So I started over using a glue stick instead. BIG IMPROVEMENT! I stamped the flower from Paper Inspirations several times at different heights along the bottom. (Of course, looking at the finished card now, I realize that the card would have been much better without those stamped flowers. They seem to add more clutter than anything. I may have to make another one.)

I did a lot of sponging along the edges as well as dragging the sponge across the card, completely changing the color which I like a lot. I also stamped my favorite stamp from Itty Bitty Backgrounds, adding some more 'dirt'. Then I pulled out my Kind Thoughts Brocade stencil and sponged a part of that on.

I recently came across a cool video by Donna Salazar showing how to make these wonderful flowers. She makes them from old dictionary pages die cut with a scalloped circle. Since I don't have an old dictionary to cut up, I pulled out an old volume from a set of encyclopedias. I'm pretty sure the pages are similar to a dictionary. Donna's flowers are quite large, but since I was working on a card, I wanted to make mine mini, so I used my scallop circle punch from SU. Since you manipulate the paper, you can control the size you make each layer, so I was able to make my flowers small enough for my card, The largest one is 1-1/4" across. I made each flower from 4 punched circles. You mist the paper with shimmery color when you are working it, but I chose to just use plain water and add color after, so when they were dry, I used sponge daubers to add brilliant blue and tempting turquoise ink. I used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole in the center of each flower. For the flower centers, I then took gold paper fasteners, heated them, and dipped them in brown embossing powder and heated again. I think I managed to poke a fingernail in at least 2 of the 3 when I attached them to the flowers, but I guess that just adds to the vintage look. I cut flower stems and leaves freehand from black cardstock and then attached the flowers with glue dots.

The bird is cut with a Sizzix die called bird with swirls. I sponged the edges, added a black dot for an eye and attached it with dimensional tape. I do like how this turned out.

What's in it?
stamps: itty bitty backgrounds (SU), watercolor pressed flowers (Paper Inspirations)
ink: brilliant blue, tempting turquoise (SU), vintage photo & tea dye distress inks (Ranger), jet black stazon
paper: chocolate chip, ballet blue, cream, old music, old novel, old encyclopedia
other: sponge daubers, sponge, paper fasteners, stencil (SU), crop-a-dile, bon bon brown EP, heat gun, cuttlebug, bird with swirls die (Sizzix), foam tape

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Have a wonder-filled day.