/* */ Beulah Bee: March 2016

March 23, 2016

La Cucina


(Per Schiassi e Scarpelli)

My cooking skills have improved with practice over the years but in the early days of my marriage I felt like a child in the kitchen. My husband is Italian and no one cooks like his Mama!

The stamp used for this tag was found at a garage sale and seems very old (I think it may date back to the 1970's) and while I wasn't sure I'd ever use it, I was drawn to the image (perhaps because of my history?) and the price was right so I bought it.

With this week's theme of Food and/or Drink at Simon's Monday blog challenge I thought now would be a great time to use it.


I began with a page from an old cookbook which is now hard to see due to the many layers of distressing I used to make the walls look like old plaster. The floor, window and sign were hand-drawn, the bird was stamped and I placed a bit of washi along the sides of the window for trim.

Buon appetito!

March 17, 2016

Hold On


At the bottom center of this photo are the words "Bird's Nest" (click to enlarge) and it was pure coincidence. The star, cut from the index pages of a very, very old cookbook was made before I even thought of using a bird (Thrift-shop Ephemera) to carry it and even then, I didn't make the connection until it was pasted down.

The stamped background was made using Tim's Dots & Floral stamp set with red and grey archival ink then tinted with colored pencils after applying a light white wash. A bit of machine stitching, gelly roll dots, Chit-Chat stickers and washi were used to complete it.


I'm linking to this week's Monday blog challenge at Simon where, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, the prompt is Use Some Lucky Stars.

March 13, 2016

Dreamer



This tag began as a happy accident. I received a new stencil (Tim's Blossom) and it was tossed on my tabletop. Later, I noticed that an unused cut-out of this lady had landed on top. Somehow, they seemed to go together and so I ran with it.

I used paint to stamp tiny text over a tinted background then applied blue, grays and greens through the stencil. The lady was put into place and I stamped then overpainted a few birds (Tim's Birds on a Wire). A few of his Big Chit-Chat stickers seemed right to explain the scene.

I'm linking up to Simon's Make Your Own Background challenge.

March 10, 2016

Foyles


Foyles Bookstores is a rather famous London landmark that has a colorful history and I've used a photo by Wolf Suschitzky of a man standing in front of it for this tag.

I began with a pile of scrap papers that were cut and pasted to form a background then laser printed a reversed version of the photo and used polymer medium to transfer the image.




Except for the very blackest areas, image transfers are transparent so I made a tracing of the man's face, book and hands to line up with the tag so I could paint the background white in those areas. This way, the parts would stand out better and not be obscured.



I liked the results but wanted a contrast to better emphasize the man so I used paint to simplify the background and found an image of books (actually wallpaper by Muriva) then cut it to fit before doing another image transfer.


The final result includes the addition of some Remnant Rubs and a bit of sanding to distress and bring out the uneven thickness of the original paper background.


The intense contrast of black and white in the original photo is what attracted me to it and the sidewalk shadow is a favorite part of this tag. Of course, the gentlemen is also terrific and I am happy that the glare in his eyeglasses came through.

The book (like a vintage smart phone) makes me wonder what he was reading and why it couldn't wait until he got home?

I'm linking to the Monday blog challenge at SSS where this week's theme is Make Your Own Background.

March 07, 2016

Simplicity


Tim's March tag inspired me to "remix" a layer of cardboard along with texture paste and paint splatters.


I used a stencil called Mini-Tatting by Rebekah Meier (TCW), Tim's Chit-Chat stickers and his new Ledger Script stamp (buried underneath the layers), along with some butterflies cut from Graphic 45 paper (Botanicabella).

Since the butterfly antennae are impossible to cut because they're so tiny I clipped a few strands from a black paintbrush and pasted them on instead.

March 03, 2016

The Red Chair


The journal page I share today was prompted by Simon's Monday challenge, Take a Leap Into the Unknown, and it was all that and more!

I took several photos of each stage so my post is longer than usual but I hope you'll enjoy seeing the process. As always, you can click on the individual photos to see a larger version.

I found this lady's image on the net and know nothing about her but wanted to give her a bigger presence because she is so captivating.

I took a leap and cropped out the frame, reversed the image, then printed the photo in a larger size than I normally work with so she'd fill up the page.


I applied polymer gel medium over my trimmed laser-printed photo, placed it on the page and once dry, began the process of rubbing off the paper to transfer the image.



I penciled-in a scene then went over the lines with a black paint pen.



The next photo shows how I used various stamps with black archival ink to create a pattern for the walls, an orchid for the window sill, and a face and frame for the picture on the wall. I also filled in her dress using black and gray paint then took a leap and decided to add bits of tissue paper to her skirt to give it more interest.


Then I took another leap and decided to use oil pastel crayons to tint the window because I knew they would be easy to smear and help create the look of vintage glass.

I used chalk pastels to tint the wallpaper and brown acrylic paint on the wall base and floor. The orchid was tinted with colored pencils because the design is so small a paintbrush wouldn't be practical.

The wall base looked too plain so I stamped a row of images using brown archival ink. My last color decision was the chair and yes, I took a leap, and painted it with bright red acrylic.


I wasn't too happy with the lady's skirt so I dug out some black tissue paper which I added in strips and then finally opted to trim the skirt with washi tape.


Here's one more look at the final outcome (so you don't have to scroll to the top) and in case you're wondering, my journal is the large format Dylusions by Ranger (each page measures approx. 8" x 11").


To learn more about my image transfer technique, click here for a post that further explains the method I use along with some tips. Maybe you'll take a leap too?