Poe & Sunshine

Is it already August??!!!  Didn't we just start this year?  I always look at my son's birthday as the official start to the holiday season because it's non-stop birthdays, vacations, and holidays from there until January.  His birthday is just a little over a month away!  Aaaaaagh!!!!!!

OK, I'm a little slow on these two layouts.  Both went live yesterday, 8/1. 

The current Scrap That Poetry poem is "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allen Poe.  Such a beautiful poem of love.  My mom requested I create something special for my step-brother and his wife and this is what I came up with, using a picture from their wedding:

The frame is a crochet hoop.  I got the idea for this from the Big Picture Scrapbooking Claudine Hellmuth class I'm taking.  The coolest part...the background fabric...

It began life as some Prima patterned paper!!!!!  I transferred it to some of Claudine Hellmuth's sticky back canvas!!!!

As you can see, it lost a little brightness of color but still!!!  It's so cool, right?  I have so many more ideas for this technique!!!!

If you're familiar with the poem "Annabel Lee" you know it's quite a long one so I only extracted one part for this hanging.  And I took a little bit of creative license with it and changed it slightly.  The original line was, "Can ever dissever my soul from the soul, Of the beautiful Annabel Lee."  Well, of course neither of my subject's names were Annabel Lee (how incovenient, lol!) so I changed it to, "Can ever dissever my soul from thee."  Hey, it rhymes, right?  Hope Mr. Poe doesn't cringe!

I filled in the bookplate with a crackle medium to further the antique-iness of the piece.

Actually, truth be told I futzed with a couple things on this piece.  I cut and pasted the Prima pearl flourish to fit within the circle. And although I had the Jenni Bowlin cardstock butterflies on hand, I liked the pattern on the Prima packaging better for this piece so I traced the Jenni Bowlin butterfly and added my own pearls. 

One other thing I did on this piece that you can't see on the pictures is I painted on their pictures with acrylic paint.  I painted their cheeks, lips, and hair.  I also painted all her jewelry with pearlized paint. 

Being the first of the month,  I also have a Category Stories layout for you, too.  This month's prompt is "_________ is my sunshine."

I incorporated techniques from both the Claudine Hellmuth class AND a class I took last weekend at my LSS with Bethany Kartchner into this.  (BTW, I am so stinkin proud of the mini book I made in Bethany's class and will be sharing that just as soon as I get it filled with some pictures - which will hopefully be asap.)  I am star-struck at having met and played along with Bethany in person.  This woman is ooooooooozing creativity.  I've already signed up for her next class at my LSS which is an art journaling class (with my other amazingly creative friend, Julie, who imparted that she's a bit trepidatious about art journaling but I know she'll make something completely fabulous!).  If you happen to be in the Mesa, AZ area on 8/28, sign up for this class!  It's going to be so much messy fun!  Oh, you should've seen me in the class last week.  I was COVERED with paint...ask Julie.  I am NOT prissy when it comes to paint.  I think it's usually much easier applied by hand. 

First, the picture of my little rays of sunshine is a packing tape transfer (which is indirectly a techinique I learned from Claudine Hellmuth...I already knew the basics of the technique but refined it with her tips). 

~picture detail~
Bethany's class was all about getting messy with paint, mists, and oil pastels and I incorporated all three here!  The sun rays are misted and then accented with oil pastels. 

The sky is a faux woodgrain paint technique that gives a great streaky effect.  I also misted a bit in the sky, too, and topped it off with some painted clouds using a Heidi Swapp mask (which, truthfully, I wish I hadn't done but oh, well). 

The butterfly and alpha silhouettes are created with Heidi Swapp masks and oil pastels. 

~title detail~


Finally, I used an actual Jenni Bowlin butterfly this time, but sprayed it wish mist (thanks Diana for that idea!) and topped it with some Ranger Perfect Pearls (Claudine, again!). 

~butterfly detail~


I really hope you like my project and PLEASE come play along with us!!!  Just click on the links for each above!

I'm off to my craft room.  I'm in a creatin' mood now!

Heidi