Vintage inspiration :)

Thank goodness for the school holidays! I'm finally going to be able to catch up on all my projects!!! The last couple of weeks of school have been madness so now I'm hoping to get all sorts of projects completed... including our retaining wall which took a real hammering in all that rain we had last week! But for now I've got some birthday stuff to share and it's all vintagy :)

Last week was Richard's birthday (Mum's husband) and I FORGOT!! I remembered the next day after my sister reminded me and got straight on the phone... but I did go and visit them yesterday and gave Richard his card and gift voucher (hope you enjoy it Richard!). I used one of Tim Holtz stamps (which reminds me of something else I want to share...will wait till the end of the post for that one!) Here's Richard's card:
And of course, every card needs an envelope... love how they turned out!The second birthday is Mum's which is tomorrow but she got her present and card when I visited yesterday so I can share it now... I told her I wasn't going to blog it until after I gave it to her and the cheeky woman sent me this email... 'You can blog it.. I won't look'... Yeah right!!! So here is Mum's card:And yes she got a one-of-a-kind envelope too:I love how it all turned out.. and there was a reason for trying out vintage! Mum has decided that she REALLY LIKES stamping and she REALLY LOVES the vintage style so I thought these cards might give her some ideas and inspiration. And now for the present... I've actually been working on this for 3 weeks decided what I was going to do and trying to incorporate lots of bits and pieces and Mum LOVES it.... in fact when I gave it to her she was actually 'speechless' for a couple of minutes and then WOW came out of her mouth... certainly made it all worth while and I'm thrilled you like it so much Mum :)I've taken a few detail shots too so here's the first one - the cameo and lace worked together so well... the cameo is from a jewellery kit at Spotlight and the lace got inked with Distress Ink:The dancing couple were a little photo on an embellishment sheet which I punched out, added the brass ring and stuck onto the 'E' and then I filled the ring with dimensional magic... the patina effect happened by accident... I edged the photo with Staz On and it reacted with the dimensional magic but I quite like the effect it gave:Then I made my very first memory slide and I have to say that it's my favourite part! I inked some paper, added the word 'Legacy' because Mum has been researching the family skeletons for years... added a little photo embellishment (because there's three girls in our family), then I cut out a bit of lace and added a crown. Finally I put it all together with some card backing and slid it into a memory frame and added some ribbon:I'm definitely going to be doing some more memory slides in the future!! And here's a couple of detail shots showing things from a different angle:

And now for something quite different. I watch Tim Holtz blog quite regularly and he often shares neat little tutorials... I tried out a few of his techniques on some ATC's I did recently and thought I would email him to share them.... and he emailed me back!!! How cool is that??? So here's what he said:

excellent work shell-
thanks so much for taking the time to share them...appreciate it.
-tim

Was I excited??? YOU BET!!!

I can't share the ATC's just yet because the swap has only just finished but hopefully in a couple of days you'll get to see them. In the meantime, have a great Sunday :)