Why do birds sing?

Hello, it's lovely to be back here at Artistic Outpost today.  I'm having a crazy week, so I'm hoping you'll forgive me if I pull a piece from the archive to share with you today.  It comes from very early in my crafty journey, and predates most of my followers, so I'm hoping most of you won't yet have had the chance to see it.  If you want to go in depth on how this was made, then you could check out the original post.  I'm just going to share some of my favourite bits with you here today.

Looking back, I can see that combining AO stamp sets was something I was doing right from the beginning - the sets complement each other so beautifully that you can always mix and match, which gives you lots of mileage when using them.

This altered frame used stamps from Serenity, Old Grist Mill and Whimsical Melange which were my first AO sets, shipped from the USA all the way to the Czech Republic where I was staying at the time.  The main focus is the gorgeous Birdsong quote and flourish from the Serenity set.

I used some designer papers to cover the box, but for the insert at the back and for the very front edges of the frame, I decided to hand make my paper.  I used the leaf stamp from the Old Grist Mill set, and stamped it in ink and in paint as well as clear-embossing it before inking all over the paper.  I love the variety of textures and colours this gives the paper.

The leaf appears again within one of the little houses from the Whimsical Melange set, along with the Memory Box treble clef die cut out of wax paper.  

Here the leaf is stamped in Faded Jeans and Chipped Sapphire and then given a coat of UTEE.  I love the dimension this gives it.

I made a tiny little scroll to sit in the twiggy heart (tip: do not try to tie knots in strips of wax paper). 

And the word Harmony - from the Serenity set again - is mounted on some faux leather (again the link for the technique is in the original post).

Here's a final photo to give you a bit of an angle so that you can see how things are set at different depths within the frame, and then I think I'll leave it there for today... Thank you so much for stopping by to take a look, and indulging me in this little trip down memory lane!

Don't forget that you can enter the February Referral challenge here at Artistic Outpost.  It's Anything Goes, as long as you use at least one AO stamp.  Hope you'll find time to play along if you haven't already...  Happy Crafting!

Designer: Alison Bomber

Words and Pictures