Dream Girls Challenge LO

I wasn't too happy about my previous LO (I would like to thank my blogging friends who tried to convince me otherwise!!) and it left me a bit scared to start a new one. I did start several times, but chucked them in the bin time and time again. But, I finally made a LO I like again. I was inspired by a challenge over at Dream Girls. They showed one of the most beautiful ads I have ever seen to inspire us, and I used it's gorgeous design, almost copied it in fact. In turned out to be a very simple LO, but I love it (I'm so glad I can say this again about one of my works!!). This picture features the daughter of my husband's sister, doesn't she have the most beautiful smile?


How to:
I started out with a white piece of cardstock and inked it in several colours of distress inks (old paper, scattered straw, peeled paint, dried marigold, vintage photo and black soot).
I cut two pieces of pp's (both Basic Grey), inked their edges with vintage photo distress ink, made some holes in one (I love that look) and glued them to the page. I also added a beautiful velvet ribbon (Trim & Lace by Webster's Pages).
I found a beautiful quote by Louisa May Alcott which I thought was perfect for this picture:
"Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead." I printed this out on plain white paper, crumbled it and again used distress inks to give it an aged kind of dirty look. One of the twists of the challenge was to use a safety pin, so I used that to attach the quote to the page. While typing over this quote, I noticed the "d" in "and" was missing... this has been corrected now.
I printed the title, and again used several colours of distress ink. The second twist of the challenge was to use something out of the scrap aisle, so I used my stapler to attach the title to my page.
To give it some extra detail and a finishing touch, I added some black felt and stitched flowerbeads over them. I ended by rubbing my black soot distress ink pad over the edges of the page to create some stripes and smudges.

Thanks for looking and a big hug for those of you taking the time to leave me a comment, I always look forward to and appreciate them!
xxx Peggy