The Seraglio or Thinking about Mary Stewart

There might be one or two of you out there who made the leap after you read the above title. Mary, Lady Stewart, was once (and still is in my opinion) the queen of the romantic suspense novel.
She wrote many, many books including the famous Merlin series and some children's books as well, but my favorites were always the lyrical tales of mystery and suspense she wove around an adventurous woman who found herself in peculiar circumstances who never ran for the hills unless that was where the trouble was.
Curious and lively, smart and humble, she was well bred and polite, but never a snob. Those books were always good reads and I still pick them up from time to time and feel as if I'm with an old friend.
One of them called, "The Gabriel Hounds" was set quite a bit in an old, nearly empty palace that contained within it's walls a seraglio, or harem. That novel and the seraglio was the inspiration for this piece.
The story is set in the 1960's and I like how contemporary and modern this young lady looks against the timeless background of trellis work and dark 'sky'.

I began with some fantastic supplies from Alpha Stamps, starting with the Taj Mahal Triptych which I taped together (front and back) to make one rigid piece.

I traced and cut my papers out for the front and back and glued them in place. I painted the 6x6 Quatrefoil Texture Sheet white and cut it at a slant and glued it to my front paper.

After painting the pillars white (they are part of the Taj Mahal Triptych) I glued them in place.

It was after the pillars dried that I decided (of course!) to add some blue to the purple paper to make it look a bit more like the night sky. You might want to do this next step before you glue down those pesky pillars. Otherwise you may be doing some touch ups with the white acrylic paint.
Just sayin'.
I wanted to add some blue to the sky, but I didn't want to cover up the stars or disappear all of the purple, so I mixed a very small amount of Phthalo Blue with some glaze.

It doesn't take much paint, just a dab, and a bit larger amount of glaze. I just dipped my brush into the paint and then mixed that into the puddle of glaze. A little color goes a long way with the glaze, so be sparing.

I painted the mixture on the paper starting from the top using a downward stroke. What is on the brush will naturally lighten up as you move down and you won't have to fuss with blending it. It helps if you practice on a piece of scrap before you commit to the piece!

You know you have the right ratio of paint to glaze when you can see the color and patterns through mixture.

While the glaze dried, I cut out my image from the Vaguely Valentine Collage Sheet and lots of flowers from the Midnight Masquerade Scrapbook Papers.

I used a couple of Copic markers to 'pop' my young ladies dress and to give her more of a visual connection with the flowers. I used foam tape to attach my girl and the flowers and the word 'Dreamer' to give them extra dimension.

On the back side, I glued a ribbon on to hang the piece with and a pretty image from Midnight Masquerade Music Makers Scrapbook Paper to finish it off.

So there you have it. Lots of goodies were provided by the wonderful Alpha Stamps and the inspiration to Mary Stewart and her wonderful novels. Thanks, Lady!

Supplies List
Taj Mahal Triptych
Vaguely Valentine Collage Sheet
Midnight Masquerade Savor the Magic Scrapbook Paper (the 'Dreamer' tag and most of the cut out flowers)
Midnight Masquerade Moonlight Mystery Scrapbook Paper (on the back)
Midnight Masquerade Romantic Rondezvous Scrapbook Paper (front)
6x6 Quatrefoil Texture Sheet


Other:
White Acrylic Paint
Liquitex Glaze Medium
Liquitex Phthalo Blue Acrylic Paint

Thank you for stopping by!

A Small Book of Butterflies

When I saw this tiny, cute little Shaped Edge Micro Mini album, I knew I had to play with it. About the same time, I was given Prima's Forever Green 6x6 paper pad and everything fell into place. Love all the tiny butterflies and illustrations in the pad and it turns out to be perfect for the wee album that was forming itself in my head.

This was a pretty straight forward project. I started out painting the back of the album pieces with black acrylic paint. And cut all the paper backgrounds I needed for each page, front and back.

 I played with the papers, cutting out the images that appealed to me and looked about the right size. I'm not sure how it happened, but the ladies wanted to get in on the act......
I started composing the pages, playing with the shapes and when things fell into place the gluing began!

After things dried, I began embellishing, first with a Sharpie paint pen. I used the poster paint one as it dries very quickly. (and everyone knows I have no patience!)
I love the contrast of the black backgrounds and the white dots.

I added little touches of metal findings and a bit of sparkle with some Swarovski flat back crystals.

One of the ladies looking quite fetching with her orange butterfly.....

I also used a black permanent marker to make contrasting dots on some of the lighter papers as you can see above on right hand page.

The Punch Elements Deco labels were a fun addition and adding some micro beads to the page gave it extra dimension.

These ladies just keep fluttering by.

Supply List
Shaped Edge Micro Mini Album
Punch Elements Deco Set

Additional Supplies
Black acrylic paint
Binder rings
Metal findings
Dresden Trim
White Sharpie paint marker
Swarovski flat back crystals

Thank you for dropping by!

It's all about the shoes........

Poor Cinderella. What bad luck she's had. Losing her father at a young age. Growing up with a wicked stepmother and two nasty step sisters, forced into being a scullery maid in her own house, making a beautiful dress and having it torn off her body by those two jealous, mean old steps of hers.
And the girl was rocking the most awesome pair of shoes in fairy tale history and she goes and loses one running down the steps at the royal palace! That is harsh.
She does end up okay in the end.
She gets her shoe back.
That is the important thing, right?

This was a fun project with most of the supplies provided by the awesomeness that is Alpha Stamps!
Loved the beautiful papers that were in the Cinderella Kit. The one on the Cinderella Coach Album is called Serendipity Anticipation Scrapbook Paper and I used the paler side, inking the edges to give more contrast. The black escutcheon-y thing on the door (and parts of the same piece cut and placed under the windows) is part of the Stackable Labels Die-Cut Set that I painted black and used Liquid Pearls-Gold Pearl to pipe on some little Fleur-de-lis and embellishments.

I used the Cinderella Pining Collage Sheet for the image of Cinders hanging out the window pining for her lost shoe. She really isn't thinking about the prince.
Those shoes were epic.

I've had a couple of questions recently about Copic Markers and how I sue them and thought this would be a good opportunity to demo adding color to a collage sheet to pump it up a bit when a little extra oomph is needed.

I got the digital download from Alpha Stamps of the Cinderella Pining Collage Sheet (see link above) and enlarged it by about 30%. I also reversed it as I wanted Cinders to look out the right side window, but she looks great on either side.
In the picture below, you can see the difference between the two images.

I used five colors on the image ( the picture only shows four because I was distracted by a kitty and didn't notice the other pink was missing)

In the next picture, I've partially colored in the hair, the body of the dress and the sleeve so you can see the difference.

The last picture is of the completed coloration of the image and an added dash of sparkle to the pink sleeve. I added a dot of blue to each eye and some pink to her lips.

After the Stickles dried, I cut the image out and fitted her into her window and voila!

For a link to all the supplies used from Alpha Stamps, click HERE.

Supplies:

Cinderella Coach Album
Cinderella Pining Collage Sheet
Serendipity Anticipation Scrapbook Paper (the pale side))
Stackable Labels Die-Cut Set
Liquid Pearls-White Opal
Liquid Pearls-Gold
8mm White Pearls
Tiny Embossed Gold Dresden Borders
8mm Looped Bead Caps-antiqued
India Ink Stamp Pad
Diamond Stickles
Various Copic Markers

Other:
Dresden Garland
White Acrylic Paint
Black Acrylic Paint
Stamped Brass Flower (coach wheels)

Thank you for stopping by!

Bronzino Beauties

I love the portraits of Bronzino. He lived his whole life in Florence (1503-1572) and was mainly the court painter for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who happened to be a very powerful Medici, so there are many Bronzino portraits of the Medici family scattered throughout museums around the world. I particularly like his portraits of women. They are so finely done, rich and detailed and studying the faces of these ladies, I can really see their personalities come through the paint. And the jewelry.....holy 24 karats, Batgirl!
Let's just say Bronzino had embellishing down to, well , a fine art. (see what I did there?)

Here's how I started out....
I began with my usual routine of giving everything a good coat of gesso. Sigh....I do love gesso.
I wanted the Triptych-Tower Top to stand out in contrast with the color I was planning on using, so I painted everything that was going to show, black.

I began playing with the layouts of the ladies, moving things around to the spaces I felt they looked best, keeping in mind that there were going to be a bunch of contrasting watercolor flowers behind them.

I also connected the back pieces together using my favorite linen hinging tape and painted it black.

i painted the back completely black after the front dried.

After fussing around with composition some more, I decided that the black background was a bit too heavy and needed some relief, so I painted the top part of the black background gold where the pierced top of the towers show through.

After gluing down my cut-out images of the ladies and flowers to the back side of the front frame, I then glued the whole shebang on to the corresponding backs. I piled some weight on the piece to make sure they dried flat.

 I 'beefed up' the jewelry the ladies are wearing by using Liquid pearls and adding flat back crystals. The I painted some gold detailing around each frame, added some metal embellishments and gave it a good few hours to dry well before I touched up any gold paint. i also made sure that there were no bits of white peeking out the side of the piece and touched up the black where I need to.

SUPPLIES:
Triptych-Tower Top


Additional supplies:
Acrylic paint
Gesso
Liquid Pearls
Bronzini Portraits
Floral collage sheets
Metals embellishments
Linen Hinging tape
Crystals

Thank you for stopping by!

Fairy Tale Trio

A trio of lovely fairy tale ladies to brighten your day. Or not.
The interesting thing about these ladies is that all the images are a bit ambiguous.

Lets take the one called 'The Fairest'. She's beautiful, but does she really look like a nice person?
And what about 'Poison Apple'? Is she about to bite into that apple or give it to some unsuspecting princess?
Hmmmm. The Queen has a rather pleasant face. She may not be evil. Who can tell?
There is always more than one way to tell a story.
I'll let you create your own!

I started out with three of the Blank Altoid Tins without the lids and used the Fairy Tale Frames Altoid Insert Set to create the outer frames around each tin. I painted the frames with pearlescent paints for richness and set them aside to apply after the background were in.
All the tins are covered on the outside with a dark, neutral paper. I used an old G45 Botanicabella paper called Secret Garden, but you can use anything you choose.
The backgrounds inside the tins are wonderful collage paper backgrounds from Alpha Stamps and are as follows;
Poison Apple is Forest Theatre Backdrops Collage Sheet
The Queen is Parrish Castles Collage Sheet
The Fairest is Grimm Covers #3 Collage Sheet
All the ladies are from the Fair Rosamund Collage Sheet
I used the little 7mm Round Red Cabochons as embellishments on Poison Apple.
The filigree pieces I used as the centers of the stamped brass flowers are the 20mm Antique Gold Filigree (for Poison and The Queen) and the Antique Gold Square Filigree for The Fairest.

All the ladies got a few sparklies in the way of some Swarocski flat back crystals and some Diamond Stickles.
And there was a liberal use of  Liquid Pearls from the Liquid Pearls-Neutral Colors Set in gold and white opal.
All the ladies were also put on pedestals (of course!) And I used the Medium Wooden Finial
painted with the appropriate pearl colors for each lady.

For a link to all the supplies used, click HERE.

Supplies:
Black Altoid Tins
Fairy Tale Frames Altoid Inserts
Collage Sheets:
Forest Theatre Backdrops
Parrish Castles
Grimm Covers #3
Fair Rosamund

7mm Round Red Cabochons
20mm Antique Gold Filigree
Antique Gold Square Filigree
Diamond Stickles
Liquid Pearls Neutral Colors Set (Gold and White Opal)
Liquid Pearls-Summer Colors Set ( Hydrangea and Key Lime)
Medium Wooden Finial

Thank you so much for stopping by!

Valentine Plaque

Hello folks! Valentine's Day is just around the corner so I was inspired to make a fun Valentine Plaque using the Mini Display Tray-Heart. I chose this partly because when I was thinking about making a Valentine, it struck me as I picked it up that it's about the same size as a smallish box of Valentine chocolates.
Having had that thought, I immediately had to paint it chocolate brown and then the rest of the piece fell into place.

I started out with my usual coat of gesso and while that was drying I cut and glued the paper to the back piece. A nice rich shade of brown with some gold highlights.

I painted the top frame piece with a matte acrylic brown, making sure I got the sides and all the inside bits.

I cut out my collage images and played with the arrangement until I got the visual I liked, and them trimmed off what wasn't going to show.

I glued everything in place and added all the details........

I used Liquid Pearls in gold and pearl to highlight her jewelry and to make her crown really pop, I put a few Swarovski flat back crystals in the centerpiece. Now she really has a great 'jewel' in there!

I added Liquid Pearl details and some Dresden trim to the phrase and the curly top piece. Which, by the way, is a portion of one of the frames from the Filigree Frames Shape Set. I use bits and pieces from these all the time to add pretty details to my pieces.

This piece is pretty straight forward to make and it's fun. Hope you make one yourself!

SUPPLIES:
  Mini Display Tray-Heart
  Filigree Frames Shape Set


Additional Supplies;
Acrylic paint
Liquid Pearls in gold and pearl
Various collage images
Matte medium
Glue
Bo Bunny Vintage Dot Scrapbook Paper in Chocolate Brown

Thank you for dropping in!