In Memory of. . . .

     The past few days I have been putting together several journal pages which commemorate four women who shaped my past:  mother, aunts, and second cousin.  All of the pages have a vintage feel since the women were all born in the early part of the 1900's.  I'm going to show a few details of how the pages were created:



     These scraps were taken from old sheet music and the pages of a ladies' magazine, Modern Priscilla, published in 1923.  I found several of these magazines last winter at an antique shop in AZ and have been using little bits of them in my collages and journal pages ever since.  Love them!!!  The paper practically melts onto the page.





     Next, I washed over the scraps with watered-down gesso, then added a bit of color using a purple Caron d' Ache water-soluble crayon and some pieces of wonderful old gift wrap (found in another antique shop, this time in Monterey, CA).

     I used my script stamp and two home-made ones for the next layer.  The pictured stamps were constructed using sticky-backed fun foam and a ballpoint pen--they take a bit of muscle, but are really quite fun to make (Melanie Testa has a great tutorial on her blog).

     These lines from one of my favorite poems, "Dirge without Music" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, were printed on my old standby--teabags.



     The finished page:  I added a window and woman from the magazine, the engagement portrait of my dad's sister, Valda, as well as the first stanza of the poem (words meld into the background a bit--which is probably good--the poem is a bit maudlin).  After adding a bit more color wash, I filled in the flower petals with darker purple. The other three pages will all be similar--using basically the same materials and format.  I'll publish them together when finished.