San Francisco, Birthday Cards and incense...

"I've been high...I've been low...I've been yes and I've been oh hell no...I've been rock 'n' roll and disco...Won't you save me San Francisco?"

Yes I'm singing it out loud...you might want to put your hands over your ears. 

I love this song by Train...beside being such a fun song, it' reminds me of what a fantastic place San Francisco is to visit. 

I have been trying to come up with an idea for a birthday card for my DS...who lives in SF, and here is where all these rambling thoughts come together...

 A vintage San Francisco image birthday card.

The image was printed on a transparency and burned around  the edges with incense. I layered patterned paper, printed transparency, tissue tape, distress ink, some cool braid.

So San Francisco did save me...because as we all know it's tough to come up with  guy cards. 

Sometimes you just need to play!

Last night at the Heritage Scrapbooking Workshop, Mary asked if I would like her to take pictures of the class...That would have been nice, but I forgot my camera! The nights I do remember the camera...I forget to take pictures. I really must get my act together. All the ladies are working on different types of Heritage projects and are encouraging each other along the way. Ann has amazing family stories, ephemera and photos which she is using to design some impressive layouts. Mary is working on a book honoring her mother-in-law, who was a poet. It is fun to see the wonderful pages they have created. We were joined by Cynthia, whose mother made a marvelous scrapbook back in the 1950s. It has been well loved and the cover is coming apart, so Cynthia is "remaking" the book.
During the class I taught different ways on how to use "Transparencies". I had a photo left over from the demo I designed for the class. With the extra photo I decided to play!
I printed a photo of Grandma Mabel at age 3 on clear adhesive film (transparency with an adhesive back), I love this stuff! You don't have to worry about how you are going to adhere the image to your project. Where do I get it you ask...Mystic Paper of course! I placed the transparency on a patterned paper that looked like an old letter. At that point I pulled out all my boxes of lace and fabric. Most of them got a "bath" in tea to give them an aged look. When they dried, I started layering.

From there I dumped out the jar of old jewelery and I found some pieces that if you squint...might look vintage. For a pop of color I added a few posies.

It turned out kind of cool...I will have to play more often!

OBTW:

If you feel like you missed out on all the fun last night...I have another Heritage Workshop this Friday the 25 of September- 4:30 to 6:30. You can sign up for the class by calling Mystic Paper.

Another OBTW:
Congratulations to the Mystic Paper new Design Team. Holly, Jenna and Surina. All very talented ladies. You can see their 12x12 entries on the Mystic blog site. Every team needs a captain...and Mystic Paper has asked me to be the Design Team captain. I'm looking forward to working with the new team. I have some very big shoes to fill...Sheri was an awesome DTC.

Lighting a Fire Under Grandma

In my Mystic Paper Design Team sack for October I also received four sheet of Basic Gray Perhaps patterned paper. The colors went well with a picture of my grandmother when she was a young girl. I set the paper and the photo on my table, and waited for some inspiration to come...it took a while.

I remembered a technique I had seen at Art Unraveled last year. A photo had been copied on to a transparency, and it had been burned just enough to melt the edges. A very cool effect. I played around with the transparency of grandma and figured out how to burn the edges ...with out burning down the house. I was pleased with the way it turned out...what do ya think?