Year of the Flower: Lily of the Valley

Welcome to another countdown post from Papertrey Ink. Today I'm showcasing the sets Year of the Flower: Lily of the Valley and Inside & Out: Thank You.

I am intrigued with old prints of botanicals, birds and insects. I have lots of vintage looking prints hanging in my home because they make such fascinating art work. I included the photo below in my post today to show you what some of these botanical images look like. Although this one isn't very old looking, the idea of these prints is kind of a collage look. Back in the day I suppose scientists had to draw and paint all of their specimens before there were high tech cameras and the like.
I wanted to recreate a botanical looking print for my project today. Do you ever wonder if some day your children's grandchildren will look at your cards and letters....just like how we look at old postcards and letters. I hope so.
I love the way my botanical print turned out. I ended up adhering my print to a Kraft Large Square Envelope. You'll see why in a bit.
I'd first like to give you a few tips for making new things look old. To start off, I stamped my Lily of the Valley image onto actual, old ledger paper using brown, waterproof ink. The paper is brown and worn looking. You can find ledger sheets like that look just like this in the scrapbook stores or online. Next, I watercolored my imaged with watercolor crayons and an aqua brush. By watercoloring, you can get soft, muted colors. And don't be afraid to color outside the lines. I love that look, although I know some of you might freak at the thought.It's okay peeps. For the white of the lilies, I used a white colored pencil. I then used distress ink pads to ink up various Papertrey background stamps. Ink them up as usual and then spritz them with water before stamping. This drowns out and distorts a little of the image, perfect for that aged look. I used Background Basics: Text Style, the small lily image from Lily of the Valley, and Background Basics: Botanicals. Just keep layering images until you've got a nice collage look.

Next up is that large Kraft envelope. I stamped images on the back flap from Big & Bold Wishes, spritzing the image before I stamped.
I used the envelope liner template that is coming out this month to line the envelope with paper from Green Tea Leaves. The liner size isn't really made for this large Kraft envy so I had to re-score my fold line. I think it looks pretty good though. I'm not planning on sealing the envelope so it was okay to cover up the adhesive part too.
Using some of the old ledger sheets that I had from a garage sale find, I intend to write a few messages to my family on my birthday this month. I thought the sentiment I used from Inside & Out: Thank You was just perfect. You can zoom in to read it. I'm going to tuck my handwritten notes inside the envelope and tie it up with a pretty brown ribbon, as shown in my first photos.
To achieve an aged look for Papertrey's Satin Luxe ribbon, try this tip: With a sharp pair of scissors, trim off both edges of the ribbon. This removes the little edge that keeps the ribbon from fraying. Wad the ribbon up in your fingers, over and over again. Scrunch, scrunch some more. This makes lots of frayed edges that you'll have to trim. You're left with frayed ribbon that is a little rumpled and crinkles and some of the sheen is even taken away from the shiny satin. You can compare the before and after looks in the photo below.I punched two holes in my envelope and am going to insert it into my regular scrapbook. On my birthday, I'm going to write my notes to my family....a little reflection, some hopes and dreams for my girls, my appreciation for my family. Some day my girls can read the notes and know what high hopes I have for them in life.

See the different size items in my scrapbook? You can see my smaller envelope, my 8.5 x 11 pages and my 12 x 12 pages. I love these mixy matchy sizes, it all makes for a really scrappy scrapbook.

On a side note, I think I even met one of the challenges from the Papertrey scrapbook forums, right? I used watercoloring for a scrapbook project. If you're into scrapbooking, want to start scrapbooking.....or need to get back into your scrapbooking, start following the forums. There's lots of us who need inspiration to get some pages done!

Hope you enjoyed my post today. Oh, and those pages behind today's project are my Week in the Life pages that I did following Ali Edwards' idea. I'll finish those up and post them soon. :)