Labour of love or even loves labour lost!

This has taken me all week to make - I can't believe it took that long, but then again it started off with a spare ATC sized PaperArtsy Victorian lady (can't wait to get her grown up sister at the weekend) and ended up a 12x12 canvas!

I really really liked my calender pages so wanted to make a smaller (ha, like that happened) 8x8 replica for my art scrapbook.

So an  8x8 bit of paper painted in Fresco Finish Very Berry, Claret and Sherbet in the same way and stamped over in maroon Archival with the pomegranate stamp and butterflies, black Archival for the swirl.

Spare card that had been inked and sprayed was used to cut out the shaped oblong and Victorian lady was mounted on another bit of spare card.  Strips of ripped pink fabric, black and pink netting and some sari silk with lots of black stitching in straight and zigzag was added over the oblong and then Victorian lady added on top.

That was all attached to the 8x8 and it looked "ok" but not quite "grounded" needed something to balance it out. I have been perusing the Prima website and their booth at CHA and some of the design team work just blew me away with the layers and details. If you haven't seen, check out Tworzysko Finnabair and Heidi Kelley - gorgeous work.

So inspired I dug out my Prima flower stash and started adding flowers over the top of some inked corrugated card and more ripped fabric buttons added here and there. 

By this stage the 8x8 was never going to get in the scrapbook with all those flowers on, so 12x12 canvas was painted and sprayed and sprayed and painted and rubbed back and distressed with tissue paper script.     

With the 8x8 layed on top it was still ok, but again needed more "stuff". So more scrap paper sewed and some on the edge dies for the scallops went under the 8x8 now stuck down. Um still needed more "stuff" More inked and sprayed scrap paper was used with Tim Holtz rosettes dies and more Prima flowers added to come off the page.

I like it, I like it a lot, love the grungyness and the depth from all the layers of paint, spray, paper and fabric.  

But I am getting in a bit of a rut colour wise at the moment, so I'm going to clear up my desk clean off my mat and look for a new colour scheme. 

Blogger is playing up at the moment and I can't get the text aligned with the photo's (being off work today means I can get some decent  photos though) at the top of this post, it's annoying me and my slightly OCD to be symmetrical and balanced in design (ask my husband, it drives him mad when we are arranging furniture - move it to the left 2" no that's too far, you can imagine the rest)

hugs

jo

xx