Friday 26 June 2015

Isabella

My Great-Great-Grandmother, Isabella

You may have figured out from all the heritage layouts I do, that I love old photographs. I found this photo of my great-great-grandmother on Ancestry.com about 5 years ago.  Recently I started scanning and uploading old family photos (at a high resolution) to Pinterest so relatives can view them for free and print them up if they want.  I'm hoping someone eventually reciprocates, so I can get some more heritage photos to scrap, lol.


I didn't do any complicated multi-media techniques on this layout, just inking around edges and a tiny touch of subtle watercolour here and there.


The papers are from Bo Bunny's Weekend Market and Time Piece collections from a few years ago.

Weekend Market - Tapestry
Weekend Market - Postage
Weekend Market - Around the World
Timepiece - Moments
Timepiece - Unlock



These are the dies and punch I used:

Spellbinders - Oval Majesty
Spellbinders - Marvelous Squares

Martha Stewart punch set - Eyelet Lace






As usual, I layered the die cuts on a darker version and offset them slightly to accentuate the edges.



Around the edges I did some hand-stitching with a cream-coloured embroidery floss and machine-stitching with brown thread.





The metal of the pendant didn't quite fit with the colour scheme so I painted it with Vintaj Patina Paints in Clay and Agate.






I often like to take inspiration from elements in a photo and incorporate them into the layout.  For this one, I repeated the bows and pleats details of Isabella's dress in the machine embroidery stitching, the wired string with bows twisting through the flower clusters and the pleated satin trim underneath the photo and lower border piece.







Thank you so much for taking a look!





5 comments:

  1. How, how, how do you consistently produce such stunning work??!!!?? Love this to bits, so elegant, with such rich subtle tonal color, and gorgeous detail as always!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is incredibly outstanding! You have such a wonderful eye for placing everything so perfectly on a LO. So lucky to have such a fabulous keepsake photo! I really need to practice layering - yours is always so inspirational! Sensational work of art Tracy!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is absolutely wonderful! I especially love all your stitching and the way it all melds with the design. I do have a question: I have a Sew-Easy, but have lots of trouble getting it to punch through the papers. Do you have any tips you could share? Thanks so much.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Marsha,

      The Sew-Easy doesn't punch through very cleanly for me either. I usually go over the holes with a piercing tool before I sew (wish there was a less time-consuming way).

      I don't know if you have had this issue with it but thought I'd share it just in case you or any one else might find it helpful. Another problem with the Sew-Easy for me was that the wheels in the piercing head attachments would drag against their casings and make unevenly spaced hole patterns. For a while I thought it was a complete waste of money. Then I tried popping the wheels out of the casings and sanding down the ridges on the sides of the wheels (with a dremel tool) that were causing them to drag. It was a bit tricky popping the wheels out (I did accidentally gouge a piercing nub off one of the heads). But now at least they turn smoothly and leave a consistent pattern.

      Delete
    2. Oops. I meant to say I sanded down the ridges on the inside of the casings not on the wheels.

      Delete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.