7 Gypsies Trousseau – and goodbye to Ideal Papercraft :(

It’s nearly the end of March already! Time is flying by again, and the sad closure of the IPC online store has happened. This is my last contribution to the Inspiration Newsletter for Ideal Papercraft, so it is exactly the right time to thank Mary for having faith in me and giving me the opportunity to join the Design Team. It has been a fantastic experience…amazing…so much fun and a huge confidence boost. Thanks Boss 🙂

I also want to thank Ngaire for being my DT buddy and Ebil Twin, for helping me through times of little mojo, and for all those LOL Cat Mondays. All the ladies on the IPC forum are awesome too,  so kind, encouraging and friendly. You know who you are, and I will miss you all so much! I hope we can keep in touch by email or on Facebook.

So – wiping away a few stray tears – since my last newsletter a few things have happened. We all got through another Christmas, Mary gave me January off and DH (my partner of 15 years) and I got married. We decided that since all of our children were going to be in the country at the same time that it would be a good thing for us to do. Then in one of those ‘meant to be’ moments I got 7 Gypsies Trousseau to work with this month.

My dress was grey, my daughter’s was pink and the men wore grey and white. The decor was shabby chic – kraft, cream and white with lots of pink roses. In Trousseau, 7 Gypsies have combined soft grey, several shades of pink, accents in shades of brown, a rich cream and white. Perfect!

Do You Want to Dance, sung by Bette Midler, is one of my favourite songs and the title of this layout.

Because 7 Gypsies papers are not particularly robust I have mounted this layout on a piece of white cardstock to give it some strength. The base paper is the whole sheet of the reverse of True, a pink and chocolate brown ledger paper. The edges have been distressed and inked with Walnut Stain Distress Ink. I used a Twiddleybitz Brick Template to add some white gesso bricks which gives the background some interesting texture and depth. Underneath the layers of paper on top of the background I have laid a square of muslin, frayed along all the edges. This adds a bit of the ‘shabby’ to the Shabby Chic 🙂

The paper layers start with a piece of the grey and white striped Dearest. On top of this there is a section of white doily cut using a Cheery Lyn die. This doily die was used to create my invitations and Bomboniere lolly bags. Next is one of the Journal Pages, cut in half and placed both at the top and at the bottom of the page.

Over the top of these is a square of the reverse of Always and tucked in under the photo is a tag I have cut from another of the Journal Pages and another piece of white Doily.

At the top of the layout I have placed a grungeboard heart that has been covered with old book paper – this one is from a French copy of Around the World in 80 Days – a small cream rose and a string bow. This combo was also on the front of my Bomboniere bags 🙂 A Twiddleybitz chipboard flourish has been coated wit Stampendous Aged Ivory Embossing Powder and then sprinkled with Diamond Dust. I have cut it in half so that one half is at the top of the photo and the other is at the bottom.

The first part of my title – ‘Do You Want to’ – is on the gesso bricks at the top of the layout. I used the pretty pink Alphabet Stickers for this. At the top here I also cut a small ‘Feb’ from one of the Journal Pages, added a ‘1’ from the Collection Stickers and popped it on to my Journal Pages tag using Mini Magic Mount.

At the bottom of the photo you can see the second half of the Twiddleybitz flourish and the second half of the title – ‘to Dance?’. I have added a Prima zipper embellishment and several flowers. The large pink blooms are from Prima and there are also some Kaisercraft Paper Blooms in there, and I have also used some rose buds and a crystal spray from my stash. The small tile is from Prima – it says ‘This is the best part of my day’. The small banner is made up of some leftover grungeboard covered with the French book page and inked with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.

My second layout  features a gorgeous photo of my daughter’s bouquet. It is called ‘Sarah’, but the title is hidden in the papers, so is not immediately obvious. This layout has a whole lot of ephemera from the wedding itself, used as embellishments.

Again, because the 7 Gypsies paper is quite delicate, I have mounted the whole layout on a piece of cardstock – this time Kraft. The edge of the background paper – the reverse of Lovely – has been punched, torn, distressed and inked with Black Soot Distress Ink. The spaces between the backing cardstock and the paper are filled with pieces of the same lace that I had on my dress.

These days I can’t seem to leave the background as it is, so to satisfy my craving for extra texture I have splattered some gesso spots and splatted a Picket Fence Distress Stain splotch onto it, just under the right edge of the paper layers. And speakinng of the layers, there are several under the photo, all distressed and some inked with Black Soot. There is a white paper doily (again the same as those I used on my invitations and Bomboniere), a Journal Page at the top, two Scalloped Tag Inserts, a large piece I cut from Charming and a Tag Envelope.

Again the edges of the photo are scratched with an emery board. At the top of the page is a fabric flower we found at Myers and that I wore in my hair. Next to it is a Kraft and book page butterfly which I used on my invitations. Underneath the butterfly, and peeping over the edge of the photo, some fussy cut roses from the reverse of Charming, and on the right of the photo a ‘1’ & ‘2’ sticker – the date was the 1st Feb. – from the Collections Stickers. Both the roses and the stickers are mounted on Mini Magic Mount. I will be so disappointed if I can’t get Mini Magic Mount any more – I LOVE this stuff!!!!

My banner at the top of the page is made up of heaps of different bits and pieces. I used Maya Road chipboard banners and covered them with small pieces of matching paper from the 6×6 paper Pad and also used them as templates to cut a flatter set of banners. I punched circles and cut them in half to create yet another banner and layered all three across the page. All are inked with Black Soot. The pretty chain of dark pink roses is an embellishment from my2angels – it’s matching other half used elsewhere on the layout.

There is another bunch of fussy cut roses from Charming on the right hand side of the photo, leading down to the second half of the Charming Rose Chain – a charm with a dictionary definition of Daughter inside it. How appropriate, and how pretty!

The piece of pleated ribbon at the bottom of the page is from my daughter’s bouquet, and the title of the layout is right there too. I drew a box around her name with a white gel pen 🙂 The tiny pink roses are from my stash. The final embellishment is another book paper and Kraft butterfly and a smaller group of fussy cut Charming roses popped up on dimensional dots.

Because of my VERY busy life just lately I was running a bit behind time with my ATC’s for our regular swap in the forum. The theme this time was Weddings, so I killed two birds with one stone and decided to make my ATC’s using 7 Gypsies Trousseau.

There were four of us in the swap this time, so I kept one of these and sent the rest off to the other ladies. Here’s a picture of all four together…

Except for the sentiments at the top, all four are the same. The base is a chipboard ATC which has been covered with a piece of frayed muslin and the smaller 6 x 6 Paper Pad version of Dearest. The reverse of this paper is on the back…no  photo though – sorry!

On top of this I have layered the old fashioned Bride and Groom from the 6 x 6 Paper Pad version of Grace, a piece of Tim Holtz Ideaology Film Strip Ribbon, a small sentiment from the Collection Stickers sheet and another heart/rose combo from my Bomboniere. Truly a wedding ATC – I hope the ladies receiving them are happy 🙂 The ATC’s I got in return were, as usual, just gorgeous and Angela has set up a blog so that we can keep the swaps going. Here’s the link: http://atcswap.blogspot.com.au/

Shedding a few tears for the end of my first DT position…..Michele xxx