Theme: TIME
In a few short weeks the calendar will say spring has arrived even though the last vestiges of winter will remain for many weeks to come, at least it will around here!
The first sign of spring for many of us will be that yearly event to set our clocks ahead an hour as we “spring” forward. I don’t look forward to missing an hour of sleep!
Our thoughts may leap forward to the plans for warmer weather, the end of school or summer vacations. We may also look back at the winter and all we accomplished or survived (if your winter was like ours!) Inevitably our thoughts and plans revolve around one precious commodity…TIME.
What do you think of when you think of Time? Wasting time? Investing your time? Spending your time? Budgeting your time? Whenever we scrap our photos we are preserving memories…Time…an event frozen in time on our pages, our personal history documented.
With the time change coming March 9th, I’d like to challenge you to do a piece on Time. I’ll share my project with the theme of Time, and how to take it from a scrapbook page to a piece of altered styled artwork that you can display. And we’ll do it with a combination of six techniques! I hope you’ll try something too and share with us on Journella.com or our Facebook page.
Inspiration:
The lyrics of Steve Miller’s song “Fly Like an Eagle” went “slippin’, slippin’” through my mind, followed by Don Williams’ driving rhythm of living on “Tulsa Time” and the haunting ballad “Time in a Bottle” occupied my thoughts as I considered a way to present a project focusing on “Time.” (yes, I know, I’m dating myself) Sometimes it’s nice to have musical inspiration as you plan, but in the end, I chose a poem by Henry Van Dyke, you might find a great quote you’d like to use to represent your “Time.”
Time is too slow for those who wait,
Too swift for those who fear,
Too long for those who grieve,
Too short for those who rejoice,
But for those who love,
Time is Eternity.
~Henry Van Dyke
WHAT I USED:
I gathered elements that included a variety of rubber stamps with clocks, clock pieces, misting masks of clocks and gears, an embossing folder with gears, brads, glass pebbles, and wire.
I have used a Black 8” x 8” Mosaic Moments Grid, Robins Egg Paper Tile, Black Paper Tile, cardboard leftover from a package insert and a sheet of black/teal Core’dination paper.
Several metallic inks from Encore! in green, blue and purple, Versa Color Lagoon Blue, and Aged Teal Embossing Enamel from Stampendous were selected to use to cover the chipboard letters and edge some of the tiles. For the look I wanted Pewter and Copper Perfect Pearls Mists were essential.
Six Steps to Alter Your Page:
Misting and Dry Embossing:
Apply the metallic sprays to the Mosaic Moments 8” x 8” Grid paper with the use of the masks, alternating the sprays. It wasn’t as clear and crisp as I intended, but the overall misting effect changed the look of the grid paper giving it an aged feel, which is what I wanted. You can use a heat embossing tool to dry the misted page to speed things up. To minimize the curling the page will do, I placed the dried page between two sheets of paper towel and used a hot iron to flatten the paper. And yes, you will still be able to see the grid lines for placement!
The cardboard was cut to 5” x 7” and run through the Spellbinder in the Cuttlebug Gear Embossing Folder. Taking the Lagoon Blue ink and direct inking in a few spots for an under layer, then misting with Pewter and Copper and letting it dry a bit. The cardboard absorbs a lot of the mist and the embossed image will relax so you may want to run it though in the embossing folder again before it is completely dry to give it a crisp embossed image and then let it completely dry. Be sure to line up the images exactly. Once dry it is fairly stiff.
Inking and Heat Embossing:
When it is dry, cut it into the tiles needed for the layout and ink the edges and a few spots inside the square and dip into the aged teal embossing enamel, the gold flecks really melt nicely for that aged look.
The chip board letters were inked with Metallic Inks, embossed with the Aged Teal and secured to the tiles with Tombow Mono Aqua liquid glue.
Dry Embossing and Sanding:
The Black/Teal Core’dination cardstock was also run through the Spellbinder in the Gear Embossing Folder. The surface was sanded to reveal some of the gears in teal and four of the tiles were sanded on the edges for that teal outline, the other four were used as a background block for the chip board letters and mounted on foam mounting tape for my title.
Printing on Tiles:
I formatted my poem in WORD and then printed on a sheet of regular computer paper. I centered my Robin’s Egg MM Paper Tile over the printed poem secured with a strip of dot adhesive and ran it through the printer again. Using the clock stamps and metallic inks I filled in some of the blank space on the tile. Inking edges and embossing powder to finish it off. (see previous detailed tip on how to print on tiles here: http://blog.tamipotter.com/how_do_i/2006/12/print_journalin.html)
Stamping:
I used the metallic inks to stamp clock images on black cardstock and punched into 1” tiles, and inked the edge; in the end I only used one of these tiles.
Finishing Touches:
I inked the edges of the photo I was using in black and mounted it with foam mounting tape. Several other tiles were mounted with foam tape, some on glue dots and some were attached directly to the grid to give the pieces several different heights.
Brads, wire, gears, clock pieces, and glass pebbles were used to finish the piece. The layering on this project really makes it more appropriate for a décor piece, than in an album. How much you add is up to you.
All it needs now is a shadow box!
So, now that you’ve seen the process, do you have a special moment in time you’d like to remember, a special person, or maybe even a special event? Why not put it on a grid and experiment a bit? Make your own art! Don’t forget, we’d love to see what you did!
Thanks for stopping in…
Andrea
P.S. The photo I used was of my late husband on our first anniversary in Niagara Falls, Canada, it was always my favorite. This was done in memory of him, March 13th, 1952 - September 23rd, 2005.
