GRACEful Grandmother

When I first saw the "GRACE" collection I instantly thought of the picture of my Grandmother that my mother had of her when she was younger- I think taken sometime during the 1940's (see picture below).  My grandmother passed away when I was 10 so whenever I think of my grandmother, the pictures of her from younger years always fills my mind and I'm always on the lookout for these great images of her.  

The base of this layout is a sheet of "Poised" from the "Grace" collection in 12 x 12 size.  Layering papers for this layout from the "Grace" collection include "Delicate," "Beauty," "Humble," "Sweetness" and "Heart."  Embellishments are from the "Components" and "Collection Kit."

I'm going to walk through some of the "technical" steps of this page, most of which are in the details which seems to be the case when working on pages!  This layout is actually going into a shadow box but I decided to take it out just so it could be photographed easier.

FLOWERS:  I wanted to add some dimensional flowers to the layout using Spellbinders' Spiral Blossom Four die to cut flowers from "Delicate" and "Beauty" papers.  Once cut, the flowers were created by starting at the small end and rolling the paper onto itself.  I find that winding the flower up around a pen works best.

SQUARE BEZEL:  Created using Spellbinders' Square Bezel.  Since these bezels are brass colored, I used IMAGINE Crafts' StazOn Opaque inks to color the bezel.  StazOn Opaque Cotton White was applied with an InkBlusher directly from the inker bottle.  To get into the hard to reach places I used one of IMAGINE Crafts' Brushstix.  Once dried I applied a thin layer of GlazOn layer protectant to seal the Cotton White before applying StazOn Opaque Mellow Mint.  Once the Mellow Mint had dried I applied another layer of GlazOn to seal the bezel.

ROUND BEZELS:  I decided not to color the Round Bezels (from Spellbinders) to give some contrast between the embellishments.  The base layer of both of these bezels was created cutting out individual circles from the "Humble" patterned paper.  The "Wise" and "Proud" die cuts were then layered on top of the "Humble"circles.

The Square Bezel has a background layer piece of the floral "Heart" paper, with stickers from the "Collection Kit" saying Grandma and spelling out my Grandmother's name, Helen Jones Roy.  Once I had all the pieces placed inside of the bezels, I filled all three bezels with resin from this new company that I recently discovered at the Sew and Stitch Expo, Little Windows.  If you've never tried using resin for making your own embellishments don't be intimidated- the longest part of the process is waiting!

PHOTO CLOSE UP:  To create the layers I used one of Spellbinders' new Imperial Gold die sets, Gold Labels Four.  Not only does it cut, but embosses at the same time which just adds that extra detail with the Grace collection of papers!  The horizontal base layer uses the "Solid Mint" paper found in the Grace 8 x 8 bundle, with "Sweetness" layered on top.  The vertical base uses the "Heart" paper, with the picture under the beautifully scripted "Sweetness" paper.

Grace was in her steps:  The "Humble" paper takes on a new look when die cut using Spellbinders Radiant Rectangles die!  Because of the pattern created along the edge, I again used the "Solid Mint" paper from the Grace 8 x 8 paper to pull out the light mint color in the "Humble" pattern.  On top of this is a die cut piece of "Heart" to which I added a piece of ribbon from May Arts.  The "Grace in her steps" quote sticker finished off this piece of the layout, completed with a couple more of die cut "Beauty" flowers.

Left Side Bar:  The edges of the two layer pieces were made with Spellbinders' Bracket Borders One die set, with the base piece of "Humble" paper layered with the beautiful "Delicate" floral pattern.  A matching piece of ribbon that was used in the quote block above was finished off with a piece of pink velvet "Serpentine" ribbon from C'est Joli.  The bezels were adhered over everything, including a couple of "Delicate" flowers.