Trip to the Baltic Sea and some cool cheating techniques

In 1919 my Great-grandfather Julius took his 3 daughters on a trip to the Baltic Sea (only 5 of his 11 children survived into adulthood, one of them my grandfather. See his page here) 

 My Great-Aunt Meta, whom I knew well as an old woman (front row at right), always always had fond memories of this trip because it was their only family holiday ever.

I like the old vintage feeling of the Webster papers and of course aqua is my favourite colour. Here are some pretty lace and paper layers:

If you want to give your chippie letters an old feel you can ink or paint them first, apply Crackle Accent and let it dry and then rub a contrasting ink over it. I smooch it on with my fingers. It's a little messy but works for me. The contrasting colour will be seen along the outer edge and in the cracks.

Renee told me this awesome trick to make fancy bling on a shoe string budget:

Draw or photocopy a swirl that you like, cover it with some acetate and paint the "pearls" with Liquid Pearls or 3D fabric paint (from Riot). Vary the sizes to make them look really nice. Don't stress if you end up with a string of gnome hats! Give the bottom of your acetate a few sharp taps and they will flatten themselves to perfect little pearls. They will take a while to dry and don't be tempted to use the heat gun to speed it up. It'll deflate your pearls and curl your acetate. I pop mine on top of the warm espresso maker and they're dry in  less than an hour. My husbands thinks I'm abusing his beloved coffee machine... When they are dry cut it out and attach your home made swirl with mini glue dots under the larger pearls.

Pretty cool cheat, eh?!