He Loves Me... He Loves Me Not...

Sweet Pea Stamps are sponsoring the current challenge at Elisabeth Bell's World and the theme is Vintage Valentine.

 

The word Vintage pretty much makes me think of two things - Tim Holtz and Basic Grey. So I used both on this project! :)

 

I'm pretty much hooked on anything Tim Holtz, especially Distress Inks/Stains etc, and I just loooooooove Basic Grey so much... I've been in love with their gorgeous papers, and coordinating embellies etc, pretty much since I started scrapbooking. I love the vintage, distressed look to them and how they can manage to give just about every style you can think of - modern, floral, abstract etc - an aged, distressed feel. I have a quite ridiculous amount of their paper collections, partly cos they're just so darn pretty that I find it hard to make myself actually use them! :lol:

 

But for this challenge, I took the plunge and made myself actually cut into some of my delicious Basic Grey papers:

 

 

I used papers from the Lemonade collection and one of the gorgeous new Elisabeth Bell mermaid stamp from Sweet Pea Stamps - this image is called Tide. I coloured her with my Promarkers and inked the edges of the image with Tea Dye Distress Ink.

 

 

I inked the edges of my papers too and distressed the edges of the smaller panel before matting them together and adding a piece of lace. I placed the coloured image at an angle on the card and added some pretty flowers and hat pins and created a pearly border using a Perlen Pen.

 

 

To finish, I hand-wrote a sentiment of sorts in an arch over the image and hand-wrote the main sentiment onto a banner die-cut with Tim Holtz's Tattered Banners die, which I attached with foam pads.

 

 

And that's my Vintage Valentine... just goes to show you that Vintage doesn't have to mean shades of sepia/brown! :)