Finding the Vintage

Looking back, it's fascinating to see how ideas for our wedding developed into realities. It all started with a shape:

Then the music we were listening to began to change. We started taking dance lessons. I finally sang to his guitar. I tried to do different things with my hair.

And after I braved the red lipstick, there was no turning back.

My interpretation of Scrapbook Challenges' final September sketch, here:

...took on a distinctly vintage theme, using some fabulous 4heures37 paper and a Crafty Secrets Creative Scraps embellishment. It features a picture of me looking distinctly vintage too. Gauche Alchemy brought me the heart stamp in the top left corner and the famous ouchless cardboard, and I'm sure you can spot the Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 paper in there too.
 

In other news, my mail art video tutorial is now available. A little snapshot of our trip to Copenhagen. Coming soon: wedding stuff. I promise!

Watching the Seasons

The final September challenge over at Punky Scraps is up and running - and it's a beauty. Team B picked an element each and Team A had to make a page up from this list.

Michelle - Use canvas (anything canvas)

Nat - use this picture to inspire you:

Elin - use chipboard

Camilla - use 3 staples

Mandy - B&W photo or image

Maureen - make it monochromatic

 For the canvas I used part of a Pink Paislee canvas number border; I used chipboard letters; 3 staples in the top right-hand corner; a sepia-tone photo for the B&W; and tried my hardest to make it monochromatic whilst still being inspired by the image.

The photo on this page is a picture of a watercolour painted by my mum. In the envelope is a story about how I come to have a photograph of this painting.

So what did I do on this page? Because there's a hell of a lot going on! Well... I stamped some Inkadinkadoo leaves onto a page from an old book and cut them out so that I could layer them up. I mixed a little water with acrylic paint and let it run down the page. I coated the inside of an embossing folder with texturised paint and ran a piece of plain paper inside it through the Big Shot to achieve the woodgrain effect (still LOVING woodgrain!). 

 And I used lots of bits and pieces - from Echo Park's For the Record, from Webster's Pages, from October Afternoon, Graphic 45 and Artemio.

Go join in - there's still a week to take part!

Time Travel

Hop in. I'm going on a short journey back to May, before we got married, before we (and by 'we' I really mean 'I') lost the plot and spun off into a crazed wedding-planning-induced stress, before my bout of blog neglect, and before I'd even considered the issue of identity and name being, somehow, inextricably interlinked.

A calm before the storm, you might say. (We did actually have a storm on our wedding day. It was forecast for the afternoon, but because I obviously didn't have the time that morning to check a weather report, I didn't have anything to worry about. I woke up to bright blue skies, and as far as I knew it, that was all there would be. All day. Ah, the power of positive thinking. The skies remained bright blue until they turned dark blue, and it wasn't until most people were inside and the band was playing that the heavens opened and the lightning forked and the thunder crashed, although not as loud as the drummer in the band drummed his drums.)

Anyway, in May we took a short trip to Copenhagen. Not the best of weather, and not the lightest on the pocket, but it was a welcome break and we had a mad 'quick, let's fit in as much touristy stuff as we can' weekend to bring the trip to an end. So there were lots of nice photos that made it look like we were there for 8 nights, not 4.

I knew from the moment I flicked through the photos on the way home that I wanted to make a mail art-inspired album to put them in. I also knew I wouldn't have time to do it until after the wedding. Meaning I had a lot of time to think about it, and that anything could happen in the meantime.

So what did happen in the meantime? Well (*grins*)... I made this awesome video, and became a video tutorialist for Gauch Alchemy, who then released a mail art kit called Going Postal (new this month!), and only went and sent it to me to play with, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Look out for the video tutorial for this album on the Gauche Alchemy blog soon!

So I Married a Rebel

I'm finally back - back from the wedding, the honeymoon, and the week's recovery afterwards. I can once again face Blogger. But, I need to break myself in gently... I'd love to show you all the wedding decorations, but my head is still swimming, and we don't have our official photos yet. So I'll rebel against that for the time being, and plug a layout I made for the Punky Scraps team.

Challenge 28 is a sketch that looks like this:

This was my take on the sketch:

The first September challenge at Punky Scraps, number 27, was to get inspired by this photo:

It made me want to scrap my brother:

Hop on over if you want to join in and be in with a chance of winning a prize!

I'm Getting Married Today!

I'm getting married today!

What a whirlwind last few weeks it's been, and now it is all about to come into fruition!

You'll see lots photos of the decorations over the coming weeks. For now, a super-special look at my bouquet.

Check out the Gauche Alchemy blog any day now for my video tutorial on how I made it and what products I used.