A tag and a box of love

During lock down I have had much more time to play creatively just for me. I genuinely love all my designing and making cards for Dotty's and have no complaints at all but I rarely have time to make for me. Lock down changed all this and over the last 16 weeks I watched the inky genius that is Tim Holtz sharing his creativity on his Facebook lives on a Saturday evening. His most recent lives were on alcohol inks, a medium I love playing with and having found that I had run out of Yupo I reached for some cheap foil card in my stash as I knew that I could also use it for a make.

I used gold and silver and made 3 backgrounds for tags. Today I will share the first which I made with gold foiled card stock, nothing special at all, cheap as chips! 

I got out my botanical 3D embossing folder and die cut  and embossed a tag.

I altered it with some green, red and pink alcohol inks but left the gold background as it was as I loved it.

I wanted to make a special tag with this and when I looked at it it screamed Victoriana to me.

I thought about using one of Tim's paper dolls on it but I wanted something even older and more relevant to me and I remembered that I have some lovely old family photos which I had turned into my own "found relatives" embellishments some years back. I scanned my photos, resized them and printed them on glossy photo card.

Meet Florence Emma Alice Didman, born in 1882 in London. I have put my watermark over her as I don't want this complete photo to be copied on the internet. 

She is my great grandmother. I never knew Florence but her daughter, my darling Nan who lived until 1989, did talk about her to me and even wrote down a short family history on a scrap of paper I still have. Florence married John Walter Jones on 25th December 1902 (yes weddings on Christmas day in the 18th and 19th centuries were quite common occasions). My Nan, who was also called Florence but always known by her 2nd name of Lilian, was born 29th November 1905. Sadly her mother died in her late 20s or early 30s and her husband also 6 months later. My Nan said that it was of a broken heart, how true that is we really don't know, but her parents were very much in love. My Nan and her brother were then brought up by their grandmother Alice. 

When I was around 16 my Nan handed me a little heart box

 When I opened it up I found these tiny ruby and gold earrings.

And written around the edge are the words

"My Mother's, written by my Nan as a child.  They were the only possession she still had of her mother's, Florence Didman, my great grandmother who is in the photo. I really treasure them and used them as a prop for my finished tag. 

Here it is;

I also die cut Tim's Wildflowers 2 in gold card and used alcohol inks on those too. I loved the tarnished effect they gave, 

 I used 2 of my field notes ephemera flowers which I added some distress glazes to, washi tape and also one of my ancient adage "Love" tickets

and one last shot.

I would like to enter my tag into the following challenges;

Sweet stampin 3/3 create your own background

Creative fingers 3/3 anything goes

Simon says stamp Wednesday bright and cheerful

Crafty sentiments 2/3 anything goes

Cuttlebug mania 2/3 anything goes my flower dies are Tim Holtz thinlits Wildflowers 2 

Crafty cardmakers 2/3 make your own background

Love to craft 1/3 anything goes

Thanks so much for stopping by today and meeting my great grandmother. I will also show this to my darling granddaughter Daisy. When I am finally able to have Daisy come to stay again I will also show her the earrings (which will one day be passed down to her) and tell her all about her great, great, great grandmother and great great grandmother who were both called Florence and both very much loved.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x