Take some time....

It is quite some time since I felt in love with scrapbooking, cardmaking... the heaviest thing was to gather all the items needed : die-cut machine, dies, stamps, colors , embellishments... slowly, oh so slowly. 

As any beginner I was enthralled by all the freebies that I found : digipapers, layouts, digistamps, tutorials for diy embellishments and all others....

Time passes and I began to sort all those freebies... some that I cherished, some that I deleted. As my preferences diversified, my style did too... From CAS ( clean and simple ) I slipped slowly but confidently to mixed-media techniques. Other items needed, of course ;) . Gesso, embossing paste, stencils, inks and so on ... 

With each and every one piece ( card or page layout ) I made I feel that I'm at home... nothing can stop my imagination, I'm happy playing with all those mediums .

 The sentiment is a free digital one ( ADS_Cherished_WordArt1 from digichick ) .
I like to get regular news from Free Digital Minikit or from Granny Enchanted or from Pixel Scrapper ... and there are much much more with online free goodies  ....
For the beginning , the base was painted in one layer of gesso , for taking out that absorbance of paper , then stenciled with modelling paste . Afterwards, the play starts. I choose to match the warm yellow with a deep leaves green . I think they make a wonderful match. Supporting each other and letting out the beauty of each. Real friends. As in life ;).

Elements were added one by one along the story : flowers, die-cuts, a frame, air-dried embellishing elements, pearls, beads . The brush loaded with gesso starts again allover here and there,  and some inks splattered on .

The added sentiment is fully appreciated these days... by me. Should I say by you, too ? ;)

I enter this piece into : 

- Vintage Cafe Card - Color marathon : Yellow.
-Challenge 300 - Creative Inspiration

Pure than snow...

Having in mind the theme ''scrapbook page layout card'' asked for the January challenge in Veryscrap.exprimetoi.net forum, I let my mind flow... 

First I prepared the background with silk paper technique for getting some fake gypsum lines, followed with a gesso layer. Then one layer of crystal -white acrylic , matt. 

Found between my scraps this small piece of paper with such romantic lines, of E.E. Cummings  :

You are like snow only 

more pure, more light, like rain

only more sweet, more fragile you. 

Then I construct all the card around this text . 

Start by sponging through a homemade stencil (a piece of fence wire net ) on corners some soft blue color stamp-pad, then stamping with black Staz-on a handwrited lines Stamperia stamp( I choose deep black just for getting a powerful contrast ) .

For the love of stencils (that I developed lately ;) ) ,  I applied a Crystal light modeling paste through a diamond stencil and sprinkled fine semi-transparent glitter on top. 

Then it was time to handle the focal point part. First , for the its background I used some fine-glass microbeads, in washed denim color , glued some metallic findings ( that I previously gessoed and coloured accordingly - most of them remained hidden under the flowers part ) .

A cropped vintage picture framed, some paper and silk roses and other kind of flowers, a strip of painted and one of white gauze along a strip of non-woven fabric, a piece of heat-gunned organza and a little play with some white pearl liner on top of them here and there ... Delicate brush splashes with blue diluted acrylic color over all . 

Distressed the edges all around and the center seemed to be ready.

 It needed another layer : a piece of blue cardstock stamped with the same Stamperia handwriten text , with black Staz-on. For the love of contrasts, again. ;)

Glued finally onto the card base. A white one . Did I mention contrast ? :D

I participate in : 

- Ribbongirls challenge - 'ROMANCE'

- Finnabair - Sparkle and shine