Gluebook Page: Wild Thymes in Oregon

My online class Your Vintage Gluebook is winding down. We're on Lesson 7 of nine, and the exercise in this lesson is to create a gluebook page using original papers and ephemera only (no photocopies). Since I own just a few items so far, I made a quick run to a local antique shop to purchase some "instant ancestors."

I bought this photograph because I found it interesting and it had a lot of natural aging on it (the corner on the right was already torn). It's an unusual shape and size for its era, and you don't see photos set on the diagonal like that very often. Even though the back of the photo was stamped with the name of a studio in Illinois, I decided to make these two dudes residents of Oregon. That's a photograph of Mount Hood in the background, pulled from a 1901 geography book that belonged to my great-grandfather. I wish I had a nice postage stamp or two from that era to place in the top left quadrant.

I also picked up an 1889 novel in German. It seems to have been a recurring (and cheap!) publication designed for Germans in the United States, as the price is given in both English and German and there's a Philadelphia business and street address on the cover. When I have time, I'll have to do some research into this publication called Heimat und Fremde (which literally translates as home and foreign, but perhaps Home and Abroad is more accurate?).

Edited to Add:  I eventually added a couple of stamps (actually cardstock-weight stickers) to this collage and am happy with the result even though the stamps are little bright.  Perhaps I need to dab them with a little distress ink to tone them down.

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week.

Gluebook Page: Otto Carl August

After struggling for more than three hours (!) to complete just one gluebook page for Lesson 6, and not coming up with anything I liked, I knew it was time to abandon the items I had started with and begin anew. I had this extra photo of my grandfather and once I cut it out, this piece came together in no time at all. Now, in general I'm not too concerned with how long it takes me to complete something that I am making purely for my own enjoyment. But I do tend to over-analyze things and I'd like to break myself of that, as it means I don't complete as many projects as I'd like to.

Lesson 6 deals with visual weight and in this page, the focal point and the visual weight is definitely on my grandpa's face and his clothing. The colorful moth wings behind him (that remind me of a collar on a vampire's cape!) bring additional attention to his handsome face.

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I Can't Help It

I feel as if I need to subtitle this post "And now for something completely different" (spoken in my best Monty Python accent), because this is not a gluebook page and the style is moving into new territory for me.

It's an ATC triptych!
Do you recognize this glamorous woman?

It's the incomparable Marlene Dietrich.
She is one of my favorite actresses from the first half of the 20th Century.

Last night I visited a blog where the artist had a video tutorial on the melted crayon technique (available on Splitcoaststampers.com in the resources section). Since I knew I had all of the supplies needed, I decided to try it. As I was shutting down my computer, I saw the folder of Marlene Dietrich photos I had pulled from the internet at some point in the past, and an idea was born. I made three different backgrounds using the melted crayon technique, stamped them with a French script stamp, and then embellished them with cut-out photos of Marlene and other ephemera. I love how they turned out!

This week has flown by, and now we have a three-day weekend thanks to Memorial Day on Monday. Have a great weekend!

Supplies:
Glossy white cardstock (Ranger); Crayola crayons; craft iron; French script background stamp by Stampin' Up!; black Stazon ink; gold Dresdren trim; Bazzill decorative black border; Paper Studio music paper; K & Company patterned paper; Cavallini Paris sticker; Prima flower; Tim Holtz film strip ribbon; butterfly clip art; Glossy Accents; Pressed Petals adhesive letter; mini gold brad; gold Stickles.

Gluebook Page: Atlas of the World

I completed this vintage collage for lesson five of the online class I'm taking. The exercise in this lesson is to look for "pieces" within the "whole" of a paper, in order to get the most use out of it.

The mauve border on the left and the bird image were both fussy-cut out of larger papers. The atlas page that forms the foundation of this piece is from a geography book that my grandmother used in high school. It's one of those things that, for some unforeseen reason, my mother kept when we cleaned out my grandparents' house after both had passed away. The book is literally falling apart at the seams, but I still asked my mom for permission to start tearing into it!

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Gluebook Page: Mr. Mott

This page features a scanned and reduced copy of an elaborate cabinet card from a photography studio in my dad's home town.

We don't know the man in the photo, so I've dubbed him Mr. Mott, after the photographer.

I'm getting the itch to go to some auctions or estate sales, in search of old paper ephemera to use in my glue pages!

Gluebook Page: Beach Babes

I am finally getting around to the Lesson 3 exercise to create a two-page spread. I didn't have any immediate ideas for these two pages so I just took a couple of days to think about what I might do (and to celebrate my birthday).

Mary's class sample inspired me to use a photograph in an album that my friend Kathy recently loaned to me. Her mother started the album for her father in 1920, before they were married, and there are numerous photos of the two of them at the beach along Lake Michigan in the Milwaukee area. I especially like this photo of Kathy's mother (on the right) and two of her girlfriends in their swimsuits, caps, and stockings. That's a lot of clothing to wear to the beach!

After digging through my pile of patterned paper scraps, I came up with a scheme that I thought went well with this photo. It took me a while to pull this together, but the more I look at it, the more I like it.

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You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby...

Happy Birthday to Me!

(This picture is a whole lot cuter than the one I had taken yesterday when I had to renew my driver's license.)

Help me celebrate by having a great weekend!