My Garden of Memories

Hello Crafters…

A warm welcome to all of you who have joined me recently and crafty hugs to my “oldies”. Thank you so much for the over whelming response to “My Creaking Door”..it’s seems to have creaked a lot and upon requests from my crafty friends I will soon have a pictorial up on how I made the wood grain log.

Today’s project is no exception…again an OTP altered project! Sometimes I wonder why my hands refuse to do simple things. The reason for doing this project is my 5 yr old daughter who is always full of questions and lately she has been asking us about our grandparents and their parents and their names and where they are and so on…the list goes on!

I dint want to do a typical family tree and decided to alter this…

One thing led to another and finally I ended up doing this and without further ado, here is my “ Garden of memories”

A beautiful vintage garden sitting on my “popular” wooden plank with flags fluttering about “family ties” !!! This just took me back in time and I so so enjoyed every bit of this mega altered project!

A small surprise awaits when you open up the ornate framed door! The main tin has 2 washi tapes wound up, the measuring tape and the vintage keys. The door has an ornate chip board flourish frame from Creative Embellishments ( my prize win at Lessology) which has been heat embossed in gold. The door is secured on one side with TH hardware findings hinge and tied on the other side with hand dyed seam binding with an antique clock hanging too. There is a ring of bling that goes around the tin.

When the door is opened….

Voila! A mini treasure awaits! Yes…generations of memories all held together in a “circle of Love”. A circular accordion mini in earthy vintage colors to be preserved “forever”…it is going to hold pictures of our grandparents and fore fathers  with spaces for journaling and there are inserts too where I can write their names and the years they belonged to!

 To make the accordion I cut out circles from Prima, “sunrise sunset” paper pack and for another set to do the journaling I did “faux leather” technique an a lovely hand made paper in different colors! It actually ended up feeling like fabric…I wish you could touch it!

I used the Inkadinkado stamps and Distress inks in co ordinate colors to stamp on the pages. I have linked the accordion using fiber paper. In all there are 16 slots for pictures and journaling. I have kept the embellishments minimum inside the mini as I wanted the pictures to be the focus.

However, there are some vintage clocks and flowers that add some color and I have used up all the stamps from Fiskars memory set as inserts on each page. I have not added the photos now, I am working on getting a good print of the vintage photos, but before that I wanted to share this “treasure” with you all.

The lid of the tin is now a stand on which the album stands. It can be removed off its feet so that the album can be handled easily! The stand too is decorated with hand made flowers using Joy crafts die and the 3^rd washi tape in yellow adds to the bright rim of the stand along with the bling!

The wooden plank garden, the stand, the frame, the album and the inserts can all be removed and placed back in their places easily!

I have torn the edges of the inserts and the flags and inked with walnut stain for the old, weathered look…the paper looks I said feels like fabric and you can actually see the ends fraying and it makes the vintage look so realistic. 

The flag poles too have been covered with washi tape. I have added the pebbles to give a garden feel and this doubles up as good deco piece too!

With this, I hope to answer my daughter’s questions and hopefully she will be able to answer her children’s questions too, Lol! 

I am glad I could do something to preserve a “ generation of memories”. Do let me know what you think of my “Garden of memories”..as always I am touched by all those of you who visit me and take that extra time to write something memorable!

Thank you so much for stopping by.

Am linking my “Circle of Love” to..

Lulupu _ use 3 washi tapes and a ready embellishment

Sentimental Sundays _ A touch of Vintage

Artistic Inspiration _ Round and round

Craft for the Craic _ something with circles

Imagination Crafts Challenge _ Anything goes

Until then,

Happy Crafting and re cycling.

Big crafty hugs.