Thorndon Hall Letter Rack, Notebook, and Pen Pot inspired by Carol Quance

Over on the Paper Artsy blog this week, Darcy has been back with the most amazingly creative and imaginative projects you have ever seen in your life! She has made washi tape on wooden spools with its own storage made from scratch, which you can see here, an apron, and the most amazing stuffed cat which just blew me away. I had intended to make the apron and spent hours looking for the one I know I have tucked away in my craft room, but to no avail. So I am very sorry Darcy, and Paper Artsy, to be so feeble - it will probably turn up and I will make it soon. Unless it got stolen by Gillian, in which case I may never find it!!  I hope you will go over and look at the projects Darcy has made. What a mind!

So I do hope it is ok, but this week I am entering the challenge using Thorndon Hall papers and Fresco Paint, based on last week's guest artist, Carol Quance, who is one of my favourite people ever. I was so pleased her projects meant that I ordered these papers as they are gorgeous and I know they will go a long way. For this project it was fun to build up layers of stamping on top of the papers, rather than what I would usually do for anything Paper Artsy-style, of stamping on layers of Fresco. I wanted to make something really useful, a letter rack and pen pot to go on the living room windowsill next to my laptop so I don't have a pile of clutter next to me constantly - Colin calls it my nest.

I painted the letter rack edges with Fresco Finish in Pansy and then cut all the pieces of the Thorndon Hall paper. I stamped a huge selection of stamps in co-ordinating shades of Archival inks. I wanted to stick the pieces down with gel medium so I thought I would use Archival rather than distress, although I edged the pieces with Vintage Photo. The stamps I used were the Keyhole Clock, Letters Mini 8, Numbers, Letters Plate 5 (the diamonds and All the things wording), Travel Plate 4 (Postmarks), LP014 (Script and Lady with Tea Cup), and Clocks 5 (The time of my life, Hours Minutes, Tape Measure). I also did some stamping with Fresco Snowflake.

 

This is the back of the letter rack. I love that particular piece of Thorndon Hall paper with the flowers on!

The penpot has been painted with Pansy Fresco and then pieces of the Thorndon Hall paper cut and stamped as for the letter rack. I used little pieces for the inside dividers to finish it off inside.

 

I love the pens on this piece of the Thorndon Hall paper as they go with the pen holder! The clock is stamped in Snowflake Fresco.

The notebook was an after-thought late last night when I was popping it into the letter rack. It's the one I've been using for a while so it's already dogeared but I thought I would use some scraps to match it to the set. I stamped the background in the same way as for the other items. I stamped the Tea Cup hat lady from LP 014 but carefully cut away the tea cup and added a shrink plastic pediment as in Carol's projects last week, gold embossed and stamped with the script mini Mini 26. The image has been coloured with Distress Inks and I cut a frame with a memory box die kindly lent by Petra. Thank you, Petra!

A close up of the lady with her new hat!

The set on my garden bench.

I have started to have a little play with the washi tape Darcy showed us. I have made washi tape before using Superdrug microporous tape - don't know where I put it! But I haven't tried it with Fresco paints which really intrigued me. There was some really old Sainsburys tape in the medicine cupboard. Hope no Paper Artsy folks need bandaging any time soon! I used Mocha Mousse, Lilac, Claret, and Rose, and I'm sure these colours will work well with the papers:-

And I've stamped with Archival inks using some of the stamps used on the main project but it's coming up to the deadline now so I will have to return to this another time!