Welcome to the Shabby Accents Blog Hop!
If you have arrived here from Suzanne of Scrap With Suzy you are on the right track. If not, please start here.
The shabby chic style has been around for many many years, originating from Great Britain, where time worn items were showcased in most country homes. Today’s essence of shabby chic is to achieve that time worn layered vintage look from yesteryear by painting, distressing, dying or tea staining. Now we bring it to you right from our craft tables.
Please follow along as the following crafters showcase their handmade Shabby Chic Accents. Be sure to visit each blog, as each artist will be having a giveaway. Also, we have a couple of awesome sponsors who have generously donated for a “Grand Prize Giveaway”. Their shops are full of shabby goodness. To qualify, all you have to do is become a follower if not already and leave a comment on each blog stating you are a follower, or have become one.
Our Sponsors
Sa Crafters - $20 Gift Certificate
And now on to the deets on my project.
For some time now, I have want to turn a book into a piece of shabby artwork and since I had some lead time on this project, I decided to go in that direction. It's tedious having to rip all the pages, but I just worked on them a little at a time. The torn edges were inked with Antique Linen DI. I usually use Vintage Photo for inking edges, but this time I wanted to go a bit softer. The base panel was clear embossed on white CS with the lace BG stamp from Wendy Vecchi's Sentimental Art (you'll be seeing that a lot because I'm totally in love with it!). After clear embossing it, I ran over the entire piece with Tattered Rose Distress Stain, and then as is typical for me, I covered almost all of the pretty background up. The cover sheet is a vintage music score cover that I downloaded from a vintage site on the internet.
I only used half of the book and ripped the spine off because it was the wrong width. I cut a strip of Ranger Foil Tape to the desired length and width and ran it through my Vagabond with a embossing folder and then painted over the entire surface with a black acrylic paint dabber. I let it dry about half way and removed most of it with a paper towel, leaving a tarnished silver effect. I cut along the front edge with scallop scissors. I was a little nervous about adhering it to the spine, but it went down beautifully with no wrinkles. I thought the top and bottom needed a bit of silver edging too so I repeated the process, this time cutting both strips with the Vintage Lace Decorative Strip die (one of the few dies I still have left in my Etsy boutique - have more on order but Ranger is SUPER slow getting orders out since CHA). I created a bit of framing for my vintage lady with the foil tape and same process and the butterfly as well.
I used several flower dies, including Tattered Florals and Mini Tattered Florals to create my large flower with white CS swiped with Tattered Rose distress stain (you guessed it, I'm getting addicted to that stuff too!) The leaves were cut with the Tattered Leaves die and swiped with Bundled Sage distress stain. I made those curly things by ripping a very thin strip of paper, wetting it well with Claudine Hellmuth's Multi Medium Matte and wrapped it around a piece of wire. Very fussy process and ended up with totally coated gluey fingers but it did achieve the effect I was going for.
My upper corner element was made with Tattered Rose distress stained CS and the Tattered Pinecone die. The leaf branches were cut with the Festive Greenery decorative strip die and dyed with Bundled Sage and Antique Linen distress stains. The little charm was some metals that I shabbied up by white embossing them and added a pink pearl and a faceted Czech glass rose bead. I added a piece of dyed seam binding left over from the Vintage Valentine's kit I was selling earlier this year.
And now for the fun part. I know you didn't come here just to see what I had made, although I do hope I have inspired you in some small way. I do have a little prize to give away. It's a lovely blue and green elements collection in celebration of spring. It includes tags, buttons, Prima flowers, floss, chipboard, a flocking set and several 5x5" sheets of designer paper.
To enter the random drawing, you must leave a comment on my blog. And to be eligible for the grand prize drawing, you must comment on each hop member's blog. You DO NOT need to be follower to win my blog candy prize. Stop back by on Wednesday to see who the winner is.
Your next stop is Ashley from Marine Wife's Scrappin' Life. If you should loose you way, here is the order of the hop line up
Theresa Neubaum - http://www.scrappyartcrafters.blogspot.com
CallyAnn Cornwell- http://callyanncraftycreations.blogspot.com
Suzanne- http://scrapwithsuzy.blogspot.com
Linda Coughlin - http://thefunkiejunkie.blogspot.com
Ashley- http://proudusmcwife415.blogspot.com
Amber Johnson - http://pixiperfectcreations.blogspot.com
Michele Eickholt ~ http://chelescrafts.blogspot.com/
Melissa Pinter- http://pinkpolkadotscrapping.blogspot.com
Janet Nagai http://www.createatdreamscrapbooks.blogspot.com/
Barbara Babe-http://barbarab3.blogspot.com
Gina Torres - http://californiascrappin-gcinderella21.blogspot.com/
Kristen http://huneebcreations.blogspot.com/
Erica Smole http://mycricutcraftroom.blogspot.com
Monica - http://scraps2treasure.blogspot.com
Alina - http://neverstopscrapping.blogspot.com/
Liz Mullen - http://scrapiliciouslife.blogspot.com
I hope you enjoyed the hop. Thanks for stopping by!
POST UPDATE: Thanks to Michelle for asking how I got my concentric circles so perfectly spaced. Here's the scoop: I got the tearing started by cutting smaller sized openings with an Exacto knife. I cut 4-5 pages at a time with the Exacto and then ripped around the opening varying the size of the opening as I went along. And you don't have to be perfect. Sometimes I would rip the opening too large, but the next page I would do smaller and it would cover up the larger opening. I just kept making the openings smaller and smaller as I went along.
Challenges Entered:
DYSU - Distress
Products Used: (I'm sorry so many of my Ranger products are sold out. Ranger is really backed up after CHA. I'm waiting on two orders and hope to be restocked in the next two weeks)