Midnight Madness Bloom

My great-grandfather was a china painter. Glad I asked my mom to clarify that! I am lucky to have a whole piece of his china in a cabinet in my home. The style when he painted was very ornate, lots of gold, lots of floral images. When I saw the challenge this week on Midnight Madness (sketch 13) I wondered if it would be possible to recreate the look of old china for their sketch.

There is another story of glass and china that belonged to my grandmother. She lived overseas and when she died my dad shipped home a box of glass and china so family members could all have a remembrance. The airlines must have drop-kicked the box out of the cargo bay at 30,000 feet because we didn't have anything left but glass dust when they were finished. I would have loved to have had a piece even as large as the 'fragments' on the side of my card.

So this is a combination of a remembrance of my grandfather on one side and grandmother on the other.

First I stamped the flower from Blooming Beautiful in gold craft and embossed it an the bee, then painted the images in with a variety of twinkling H20s. For the flower I used sapphire, wild blueberry and plum on the blossom. For the side china bits I stamped Belle Toile on vanilla cardstock, gold embossed it, then for both pieces I did the cracked glass technique. For those of you who have never tried it, you cover your image with versamark, sprinkle on clear EP and emboss it. You have to repeat this step at least five times to get a nice, thick layer of gloss on your paper. Other people use UTEE, I don't own any. Then you put it in the freezer for at least fifteen minutes and then when you take it out, you bend the paper to form crack lines. I used creamy caramel ink and a sponge to rub some ink on the images and a bit of it goes into the crack lines to help define them better.

For the belle toile panel, then I cut it into the squares for the sketch, to look like random pieces of broken china that someone is trying to put back together. At least, that's the effect I was trying to achieve. The flowers are those new primas, little roses, in white. I took reinkers in pacific point and creamy caramel with an aquapainter and painted them to match the blossom and the background, then put a bit of liquid glue on them and dipped them in gold glitter. Sponged the edges of the vanilla cardstock with creamy caramel.

Thanks for looking.

Stamps: SU Belle Toile, Bloomin' Beautiful

Paper: Vanilla, PTI Ripe Avocado

Ink: gold craft, creamy caramel, pacific point

Other: versamark, clear EP, sponge, gold EP, twinkling H20s, gold ribbon (PTI), prima roses, aquapainter, gold glitter