Fond Memories for A Vintage Journey

Hi everyone and thanks for dropping in here.
Today is the day for another challenge over at A Vintage Journey. The lovely Terry has chosen the theme of Fond Memories.
Well, I decided to create a canvas board, dedicated to the fond memories I have of my beautiful mum. With Mother's day in the US only just over a week away, it seemed a good topic.

This piece was inspired by Tim's scrapbooking and collage style, which I absolutely adore. The products I used for this projects are part Tim Holtz own and part different, our challenge blog is really about Tim's style and not his products.
So here is a quick step by step.
I started with a small 5 x 7" canvas board and covered it with strips of tissue wrap:

Next I blended Picket Fence Distress paint over it using my finger, to merge the strips more into the background, but keeping the texture.

A second layer of paint, this time using Antique Linen was added and then I spritzt it with water to blend the two colours together. On the photo you can see only very little difference.

I added more colour by rubbing a Vintage Photo Distress Inkpad straight over it, without using a blending tool.

I then spritz with water to blend the colours, but when it had dried I decided it needed some more textures so I spread some Wendy Vecchie Embossing Paste through the Tim Holtz Vintage  Doily stencil in two corners.

More colour was definitely needed, so this time, using a blending tool I added Potting Soil Archival over the added texture and around the edges.

Time for some background stamping, using an Artistic Outpost and a SinCity Stamps stamp:

Blending the stamping in a bit with some Walnut Stain and Antique Linen Distress paints, I then added a second layer of stamping, this time using Maroon Red Archival and an Indigo Blue stamp.

Time to make and gather some collage elements and embellishments, here you can see a first collection (as it turned out I did not use them all and added some others):

Some of them were stamped and inked, (the numbers on the right, from the Artistic Stamper), some were die cuts, the bottle cap and ruler( gifts from the lovely Annie and Zuzu), some ideaology and ephemera pieces, all inked and distressed.

Here you can see how I started to play around with them, before committing to their final position. I usually don't think too much about where things are placed, but follow my intuition, making sure there is a kind of balance between horizontal and vertical elements and that some are placed behind and over the central image, in this case the photo of my mum of course.

Alright, I'll show you some close ups of what I landed up with:

A word band, attached with a bit of hemp twine that goes right around the board. I rubbed Antique Linen right over it, left it for a minute and then gently rubbed over it with a bit of kitchen roll, leaving the paint just in the recessed letters. I also added one of the gorgeous heart charms.

The bottle cap, it was cut from Kraftcard, inked with a mix of Vintage Photo and Black Soot. I then punched a circle from a tiny scrap of the French Industrial papers, and added a Type Charm in the middle. The E is the first letter of my mum's first and surname, so fitted just right.

A clock from one of the Ephemera packs, inked and stamped a bit and then tugged behind the photo.

The word memory was printed on one of the scraps of tissue wrap I started off with, so I put it aside as of course it fitted the project perfectly.

A piece of Tissue Tape with the number 35, she must have been about that age when the photo was taken. The special Delivery, from one of the ephemera packs was added mostly just for a little touch of colour.

And finally two chipboard letters, suitably distressed by sanding and then inking around the edges.

And that was it, you'll be glad to hear.

Make sure to go over to the A Vintage Journey blog, to see the amazing projects my teamies have created, I promise you will not be disappointed!! And of course we all hope you will play along in the challenge, but PLEASE read the challenge rules, for if you don't follow them you will not be eligible for either our prize or one of our top three!

Have an inky creative day and most of the products used can be found in the Countryview Crafts shop, who are also the sponsors of our prize.