Good times, good friends! Swirlydoos Sept kit

Last weekend four of my Swirly girlfriends came for a weekend of scrapping, drinking and eating!  LOL!    We turned our upstairs into a big scrappy haven and had such a great time making a big mess!  The poodles especially loved it because they had so many swirly aunties to pet and spoil them.  Every morning they run to the top of the stairs hoping to see their swirly aunties, girls you are missed!!  We all worked on paper bag minis and some of us dug into our Sept Swirly kits.  Dick and I took everyone on a drive through the countryside so they could see our southern lifestyle and tobacco heritage.

I really love the Prima Printery papers that are in the Swirlydoos September kit.  Someone kept telling me that less is better so I think my two LO's have a bit more blank space than normal!  I loved using this Dusty Attic frame that I first painted with suede acrylic paint.  Then I covered with Crackle Accents.  When that dried, I rubbed pewter perfect pearls into all the cracks.  The dress form is one of Primas new canvas resists that I inked with Distress antique linen ink - it was the perfect color for  the dress form.  The spool of thread is an Alterations diecut which I heat embossed to make it look like the dress form.  First I painted the spool, then I stamped swirls and then heat-embossed the swirls with clear embossing powder.  My Mother was an awesome seamstress so this LO is a nod to her talents.

I was really excited and really challenged when I came upon this photo of my great great grandparents, their daughter, SIL, probably a son and we don't know who the other person is.  The original photo was badly faded and I did not imagine that I'd be able to bring as much detail out as I did.  I was really ecstatic about the results that I managed to achieve.  I'm really hooked on photo restoration and think I'm going to have a look at some new tools to make the job a tad easier.  The Dusty Attic pieces are painted with white gesso and then sprayed with Glimmer mist in Timberline and Snowy Pine.  The canvas resist piece is also sprayed with Timberline. Oh my, those are some GORGEOUS colors, moost haves!!  Thank you Jen (jrabs) for the gorgeous buttons above and the trim below, both were perfect for my LOs!