Vintage Embroidery Sampler

Having been inspired by the design team's makes for the April challenge "Through the Looking Glass" at A Vintage Journey, I decided to give this a go.  I was especially intrigued by Jenny's aged mirror , Anne's spectacles, and Alison's bottles - so clearly I was going to use acetate somehow!

I started by creating a faux leather cover, but not in brown. It is spring after all, and I have had enough of brown!  :-)  I envisioned instead a delicate white kid leather, tinged with blue and pink.  Not sure where that came from, but I went with it!

I made faux white leather by taking heavy white card stock, spritzing heavily with Ranger's Ink Refresher (or glycerin for those of you who can find it in your area), and crumpling the paper, then straightening out.  This was repeated several times on the same piece of paper to get a very supple, leathery product.

The blue and pink colors were added by wiping the leathered paper through a mix of Weathered Wood and Spun Sugar Distress Paints, along with a heavy dosing of Picket Fence Distress Paint, all thoroughly sprayed with water.

Now to the acetate bit.  I wanted an aged look, so I painted a piece of old packaging with Clear Rock Candy crackle, and once dry, pounced it with Mushroom and Silver Mixative alcohol inks.

Love the crackle.  I envisioned this piece as the first page in the sampler..... which I would make along the lines of Brenda's wonderful card.








I created some pages from heavy white card stock, aging both sides with the technique I learned from Laura Bomber, and which has become one of my favorite paper treatments.  I used Frayed Burlap and Weathered Wood Distress Inks, along with Picket Fence Distress Paint.

I decided to use the Baroque steel rule die to create the pages.  Since I wanted to frame them, I used  the corresponding mini-Mover and Shaper to create the aperture, after first lightly painting cream card with Weathered Wood Distress Paint, spritzing with water and a very light spray of gold mist, and then embossing.  Below is one of the inside covers, as I needed to strengthen the "leather" outside covers.  Faux leather remains fairly pliable due to the glycerin, even upon drying.

Here is an outside cover, now cut after being glued to the embossed inside.

I created the frames from the embossed card stock, and sandwiched the pages between them for a total of eight pages.  I placed eyelets in the covers and pages, through which I would thread my ribbon (seam binding colored with Weathered Wood Distress Stain).

The aged "glass" acetate was placed as the first page, to "protect" the title page....

which I created by printing one of my favorite fonts, Emily Austin, onto tissue paper and fixing to the sampler's page with matte medium.

The other pages were stamped in Wendy Vecchi's Tree Branch archival ink with little stamps that resembled something that might be embroidered floral images.... I think these are called tea bag stamps, as they are about that size - I got them when I first started collecting stamps.  Many of them have an image at an angle, so that four placed together would make a pleasing "tiled" look..... but I chose mostly images that stood on their own.  The images were then colored with non-reactive pens, as I wanted to coat everything with matte medium once the book was complete.  The pages were further aged with smudges of Frayed Burlap Distress Ink, which was also used to distress the edges of the frames.

So that is my little book....

 I will be entering this into the following:

• A Vintage Journey's "Through the Looking Glass"
•  Our Creative Corner's "Color Your World" 
• The Artistic Stamper's "Flora and Fauna"
• Frilly and Funkie's "Put a Ribbon on It!" 

and of course Brenda's Visual Journey!  Thank you so much for stopping by, and please do leave a comment - I love hearing from you and appreciate each one! 

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