A New Challenge Blog

Hello!

The holidays are over, New Year's Day is behind us and it's time to usher in the new year with a fun project to celebrate my good cyber friend Heather Hudson's brand spankin' new challenge blog, My Artistic Adventures Challenges (full description here).  It's all vintage all the time at her blog My Artistic Adventures and she creates the most amazing projects!  I am continually inspired by her delightfully clever creations, and I know you will be too!  I was honored to be asked to be a guest designer for her very first challenge and jumped at the opportunity to work with her collage images which can be found in her Etsy shop here.

This is a Tussie Mussie, a darling little paper cone that was used in Victorian times to hold a small nosegay but which nowadays can be used to hold any number of treasures.  I've used the Romantic Roses template in Heather's Etsy shop as the base, and then I've decorated it with images from several of her other collage sheets (all will be listed and linked below).  These colors, the softs pinks and greens, are the colors that make my heart happy, and it was a dream working on this project.

Isn't she sweet?  I trimmed her hat and little hiney cover with pink glitter and tucked her in behind one of the hearts that fits over the base shape.  Each side of the tussie mussie has hearts in different colors - two pinks, one cream and one blue/green for added interest.  I popped them all up on dimensionals for added depth.

Here are some of the words from the collage sheets.  The mulberry roses have inked petal tips to which I added a bit of glitter, and the base heart shapes were edged with frantage mica fragments for a little definition.  Pretty much all paper edges were inked with a soft brown chalk ink. 

The small flowers were pink and white but were a bit too bright, so I lightly painted them with a bit of wheat colored shimmer paint to tone them down and warm them up a bit.  I added multi-loop bows behind roses on opposing sides made from the same ribbon as the hanger (tucked inside).

See the little heart at the bottom?  Yep, more of Heather's vintage Valentine goodness.  What's even more fun is that they open up!

Here's one closed.  I added dimensional foam adhesive to pop the image up from the base a bit.

And here it is opened up.  Heather offers little Valentine conversation hearts that will fit inside, but I decided to add my own personal greetings this time.

Here's another one...

And still another one.  Hey, it was 2013 when I made it.  <smile>  I painted the insides of all little heart folders with pink shimmer paint as the white paper was a bit too bright.

By the way, I took a technique from Heather's playbook and added vintage green glass glitter to the leaf ribbon that twines around the tussie mussie.  It adds a nice additional layer of sparkle, and you can never have too much sparkle.  At least not in my book.

The vintage lace trim around the top was a fortuitous find at a flea market a couple of months ago.  It matches the paper exactly!  Some hand dyed seam binding completes the look.  There is also a seam binding loop with which to hang it, but I don't have a single place in my house that affords a decent photo op for hanging things, so I haven't included a picture.  I will make it a New Year's resolution to be able to take better photos of projects that hang.

I hope you've liked my little tussie mussie and are inspired to join me on Heather's challenge!  Full details can be found here!  And there's even a lovely new badge to display on your blog!  The HTML code can be found on Heather's blog!

Happy crafting!


Images used:



 

 

Challenges entered:

Really Reasonable Ribbon #86 - Pink and Ribbon
Simon Says Wednesday Challenge - Something New (new digi papers, guest designer for Heather Hudson's new challenge blog)
Pile It On #48 - P is for... (pink, posies)
Frilly and Funkie - New Year's Resolution (to make more altered art and 3-D pieces, fewer cards)