Enjoy the Journey Shabby Chic style...

Hello everyone and thank you for dropping by  today. Astrid here with a little Shabby Chic wall plaque:

These are the stamps and products I used:
Gibson Girls Plate 1
Calligraphic Mat 12
Labels
Tim Holtz Simple Sayings
Distress Inks in Vintage Linen, Victorian Velvet, Tattered Rose,Weathered Wood, Frayed Burlap
Archival Ink Jet Black
Tim Holtz Rock Candy Crackle Paint
Distress Stain in Vintage Photo
And from my stash:
Tim Holtz Baroque Die
Distressed Doily Die
Spellbinders Flower dies
Some Lace
Perfect Pearl pen
Mount board
Titan Buff Acrylic Paint
Treasure Gold in White Fire
Scrapbook papers (Prima)
Grey Charcoal pencil
Sewing machine

I started by cutting a Baroque frame out of mount board ( I bought a huge bag of off cuts from my local frame shop for £5 but have heard some frame shops even give it away for free, well worth checking out) I cut the baroque label die once more out of paper and inked it with my chosen Distress colours. I then stamped some of the labels of the labels set in Weathered Wood to add some more interest to the background.painted the frame with Titan Buff paint and when dry covered it in a fairly thin layer of Rock Candy Crackle paint. I dried it with my heat gun to make it bubble a bit. When it had dried and crackled I swiped the Distress Stain over it (Like Tim describes in his July Tag) and then rubbed some Treasure Gold over the raised bits .
Next I stamped one of the ladies from the Gibson Girls set and paper pieced her by stamping once on smooth card and once on a scrap of Prima paper. I cut them out, coloured her body with tattered Rose,  pieced them together and then adhered them to my baroque label. I drew a little bit of a grey shadow around her for extra depth. The baroque label seems to be made to fit this lady just inside it...

I gave the lady a little necklace by adding a pearl with my pearl pen and drew the little chain.
Next came the background, I cut another bit of 6 x 6" scrapbook paper in matching colours, inked around the edges with Weathered Wood and stamped some more of the labels and the Calligraphic Mat 12 all in Weathered Wood. Then I sewed around the edges and distressed them.
Next I created some ephemera to tuck behind the frame. I stamped some labels again in Weathered Wood on bits of  paper, coloured them with Antique Linen, Weathered Wood and Brushed Corduroy, distressed and crumpled them to make them look old and tucked them in behind the frame.

Next I glued some lace around my backing paper, cut a distressed doily out of white card, glued it on top and then the frame and ephemera on top of that.

The final step was to embellish with some home made flowers and leaves I still had lying around from a previous project, and then mounted all of that on a piece of 8 x 8" mount board.

One of the Tim Holtz simple saying mounted on a small strip of mount board finished it all off.

Well, there you have it. In my mind I can think of all sorts of stories about this lady and why she is kneeling there like this, but this post has become long enough as it is already.....

Hope you like my wall plaque, thank you for visiting and I hope you are having a creative week!