Postcards From Paris

      Here is the sister project to Memories Of Summer as promised. The small board helped me to try out a few things before tackling a larger project.
     This is also my contribution to the Design Team at All Crafts Challenge. We have a new Anything Goes challenge starting today for projects that are not cards.
     This project was inspired by the frame which was found in a charity shop, it had no glass and was very distressed, which saved me having to make it look old and worn.
     I have used a piece of hardboard cut to shape as my 'canvas', it has been painted with a base coat of cream emulsion before adding any colour. The coloured paints used are all EcoGreen Acrylics, including the gold.
     Once dry I began to distress the board by using Distress Ink Brushed Corduroy around the edge and stamping with a crackle stamp in the same colour. I have used a stencil top and bottom with some homemade texture paste, a mix of decorators flexible filler and gold paint.
 

    Then I moved on to using masks, a crown over the gold area and more Distress Ink to dull it down a little. A Fleur-De-Lis  over the pink area with a mix of mica spray and pink paint dabbed on.
     At various places over the board it is stamped with a Tim Holtz swirl in brown ink and there is an area top left that is stamped in Distress Ink Aged Mahogany with a Stampin'Up French Script stamp. The chandelier is stamped in Archival Coffee.
     The letters spelling Paris are patterned vellum over a pink thin card die cut with an X-Cut die, then I drew around the outside of the die on maroon card and hand cut. To get the vellum to stick without showing glue I used a Stix2 double sided sticky sheet, this means there is glue all over so it doesn't stand out like small areas would.

     The gold Fleur-De-Lis was a small hanging decoration, so I filled the hole at the top and once dry dabbed it with gold acrylic paint to hide it. It has a narrow pink ribbon holding it onto the board, it is threaded through a small hole drilled in the board and tied off at the back. I tried various types of glue but it kept falling off, so I thought it was best tied on, there is a backing board so it doesn't show once in the frame.
     The postcards are a mix of a free digi and cards from my Grandmothers postcard album copied and reduced in size, they are mounted on varying levels of foam pads.  I felt it needed a little something pink in this area to balance it so I have added some paper flowers.
     There is a pound coin in the top left of the main picture to give some idea of the size of this project, it was a joy to make something larger than usual,  I hope you like it, I certainly do. Now I'm on the hunt for more old frames!
     Please come over to Craft My Life All Crafts Challenge and show us what you've been making, remember it's anything but a card.

I would like to enter my picture in the following challenges:

Dragonfly Dreams - Anything Pink
Eclectic Ellapu - Texture / Embossing
Fussy and Fancy Friday - Lots Of Pink
Altered Eclectics - Anything Goes