Mary Jane 1942

During World War II, my father served as a waist gunner in the Eighth Air Force on a B-17 Flying Fortress. While he was stationed in England, he kept a photo album filled with pictures of his companions, the planes that came back damaged, and most of all, of friends and family back home.

One of my nephews spent countless hours scanning the album as well as a pocket diary and a scrapbook filled with newspaper clippings that my grandmother put together.

I’ve selected this image from my father's album for this year’s Mother’s Day layout. It’s simply captioned “Mary Jane 1942”.

When I opened my May Kit from Très Jolie and started examining the pretties, I immediately put this sheet to one side, knowing that I’d want to use it for this page. I love the design, with the weathered frame and background of equally weathered whitewashed boards and flowers and lace on top.

My first step, after deciding where to place the photo and that large flower, was to figure how to arrange one of the corner chippies that came in the kit. I ended up cutting it into three pieces and colored it with Color Bloom mist and Sparks paint from my stash. 

While that was drying, I cut a slit on the edge of the “frame” and slid one side of the fussy-cut border piece (part of the 035 ephemera sheet) underneath, so that the other side would end under the flower.

Next, I cut three of the images from the back of the cover sheet, inked them, and fanned them out to fit behind the photo. 

Once that was done, I began to embellish my page, using more flowers from the kit along with a fussy cut clock and butterflies from the ephemera sheets.

The larger flower and the vintage lace are left over from the March kit.

The main part of this trinket from the April kit is actually cork. I altered it to blend in with the rest of my page by stamping it with chalk ink.

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*****Supplies*****

***Paper***

Lemon Craft – Grow Old with Me Collection – 12 x 12 Double Sided Paper – 04 #LP-GROW04

Lemon Craft – Grow Old with Me Collection – 12 x 12 Cover Sheet #LZP-GROW01

***Embellishments***

Lemon Craft – Grow Old with Me Collection – Vintage Time Ephemera 035 #LZP-GROW01

Lemon Craft – Grow Old with Me Collection – Vintage Time Ephemera 037 #LP-VT037

Prima – Lifetime Collection – Flower Embellishments – Brown #564476

Prima – Divine Collection – Fabric Flower Embellishments – Peach #564612

Prima – Pretty Pale Collection – Flower Embellishments – Meadows #637682

Prima Marketing – Zella Teal Collection – Flower Embellishments – Made with Love #597177

Creative Embellishments – Laser Cut Chipboard – Rose Page Corners

Prima – Vintage Trinkets – Wood Dangles with Beads #560829

Très Jolie – Vintage Doily

***Mediums***

Prima – Ingvild Bolme – Chalk Fluid Edger – Pastel Peach #891756

Prima – Color Bloom – Spray Mist –  Sultry Shimmer – Lime Wedge #573850

Prima – Finnabair – Art Alchemy – Sparks Acrylic Paint – Butterfly Spells #964122

Ranger Ink – Tim Holtz – Distress Ink – Vintage Photo #40262

***Tools***

Prima – Rosarian Collection – Clear Acrylic Stamps – Mix 2 #559489

EK Success – Cutter Bee – Scissors EK-CB01

***Other***

Scor-Tape – ½”

Beacon – 3-in-1 Advanced Craft Glue

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As always, I want to thank you for peeking into my blog; your visits mean a lot to me.

May 2016 Round Robin at Swirlydoos

This image of my beautiful mother holding an eight-month-old me is the perfect photo to use for the May Swirlydoos Round Robin, with its theme of "All About Mom".

What's a Round Robin? It's a special kind of creative challenge, with a lot of people coming together to share ideas and techniques throughout the month. Sign-ups are held in advance; then the participants are broken up into teams of 4, with the first person in each team assigned to complete a layout at the end of Week 1. The next person must "lift" or copy that layout using her own style and materials, but keeping the basic idea of the first design; this is due at the end of Week 2. Then the third person "lifts" that page for publication at the end of Week 3 and the last person in each team will do the same for Week 4. There is a prize given to the person whose layout receives the most votes of all members of the group (not just the Round Robin participants), but I've always thought that most of the fun is seeing all of the different takes on a theme and a design, sort of like a game of telephone.

I've used some of the last of the Blue Fern papers that came in the April kit, punching and fussy cutting here and distressing a couple of strips there.

The large yellow flower (as well as the brown one peeking out above) are from a RAK sent to me by Bec Genet. The beautiful rosette trim is from Cheryl Merrihew, something that I've been hoarding for a long, long time. Thank you to both of you ladies for such pretty embellies...

The title is from an old Kaisercraft rub-on set that came in a long, long ago Swirly kit.