CREATIVE CARTE BLANCHE - CORRUGATED PAPER, METAL AND LACE

Hello everyone!  I hope you have all been enjoying your creative adventures with Creative Carte Blanche!  I know all of us have truly enjoyed seeing your creations and are learning a lot at the same time!

Candy is hosting this current adventure and has come up with a wonderful challenge for us all - to use corrugated paper, metal and lace together in the same project.  I really enjoyed the idea of grouping these three items together and, something unusual for me, came up with an idea pretty quickly.

Those of you who followed us during our Compendium of Curiosities adventure may know that I love to use old photographs that I am fortunate enough to have from my family.  It has always been on my "bucket list" to create beautiful art with these photographs to enjoy and hopefully pass down in the family.  If you are like me, I have so many projects in my head and not enough time to do them all, so it is nice that I have this opportunity.  Here is my creation:

The photo is of my great grandparents' wedding.  I decided that I didn't want to add much color to this piece, so I used light colors that I found in the photo.

I started off by using white gesso to prepare the canvas.  Then I began laying different pieces I wanted to incorporate until I was happy with the look.  Originally I thought I would add a pop of color to the top right and bottom left of the canvas, however, I decided to remove the fussy cut paper flowers and stick with a softer look.

I then removed all of the elements and glued torn pieces of corrugated cardboard onto the canvas.

Next came the paint.  I used Tim Holtz Distress Paints - Antique Linen, Tattered Rose, Brushed Corduroy, Pumice Stone, Vintage Photo and Picket Fence and applied them with a brush and a baby wipe.  I tried to closely match the colors found in the photo.

I used DecoArt's Media Matte Varnish to seal the canvas when the paint was dry.

I painted a torn heart I created with the same colors from the canvas and sealed it.  I then added a       Time Piece and a word band from Tim Holtz Idea-ology to the heart.

Then it was on to the lace.  I wanted to use quite a bit in order to create a soft, romantic feel.

It was now time to add some additional metal embellishments, a key and a Philosophy Tag               from Idea-ology.  I laid down some Prima flowers so that I could judge where to put the metal pieces.

They are hard to see, but the leaves are also metal leaves from Idea-ology.

Now to add the photo...I adhered the photo to some heavy black cardstock first to make it stronger and then adhered the photo to the canvas using foam tape and matte medium.

To complete the piece, I adhered the Prima flowers to the canvas as well as three antique buttons from Tim Holtz Idea-ology.  The torn heart was also adhered, partially covering the bottom of the photo.

I have to say that I am pleased with the way this canvas turned out!  I think my great grandparents would be happy!

Many thanks to Candy for coming up with this wonderful adventure for the month of March.  Hope you all will join along!  Don't forget to check out our blog and upload your photos here.

Happy crafting!
Susan