I was recently talking with someone about "Desiderata," trying to remember some of the beautiful sentiments in the prose poem by Max Ehrmann (circa 1920). I've loved it since my college days, so I looked it up on the internet. It's not readable in my photo, so here's the link: http://www.fleurdelis.com/desiderata.htm
I decided to surprise that person with a framed version of it as a gift, and chose Garden Silhouettes for a background for it. I'm very happy with how it came out and want to share with you how I did it:
I copied and pasted the poem into WORD, sized it and chose my font (I used Monotype Corsiva, font size 11) and centered it on the page. Then I printed it at 25% gray scale onto ivory parchment paper, the kind used for certificates, calligraphy, etc., and used this faint printout as a guide to stamp around. I trimmed 1/2 inch of the top and bottom, and 1/4 inch off each side to make it 8 x 10 to fit the frame.
For the background, I stamped the wheaty stem at the bottom and about half way up the sides with River Rock and Always Artichoke. Then I filled in around those images with River Rock and Always Artichoke stamped off once. I followed the same procedure with the flowery vine stamp at the top and down along the sides, overlapping a little with the other images.
I used a stipple brush with River Rock all around the sides.
For the top layer I printed out the poem again at 100% black onto cardstock vellum, using my hair dryer to dry the ink. I then trimmed it to 8 x 10 and layered it over the stamped image, using a gluestick just on the corners to attach it. The magical effect of vellum never ceases to amaze me. The combination of the mottled parchment paper and the vellum produced a very soft and dreamy background with lots of depth.
I found this 8 x 10 frame at Walmart for $3.00.
Date: Wednesday, September 5, 2007 GMT Views: 2754
Favorited:25
Registered: October 25, 2004 Location: Southern Oregon Coast Posts: 17641
Thu, Sep 06, 2007 @ 10:44 PM
The Garden Silhouettes background on this is incredibly beautiful, Linda! This is a wonderful gift and will be such a surprise. Very meaningful prose, too. I have this hanging inside my cupboard at work--from back in the day when we used to age our paper by scorching the edges. Needless to say, yours is much prettier!
This is so beautiful! I, too, have loved this since my college days and remember that many of us had this in some poster form in our dorms. Thank you for sharing the link to it; i think I'll try a simpler one for my OLD college roommate. Georgeous stamping off and yup - love the vellum.
Registered: August 9, 2005 Location: Tampa, FL Posts: 16812
Mon, Sep 17, 2007 @ 9:16 AM
Very beautiful Linda, what a wonderful gift for your friend!
------------------------------ Jerri Kay My Gallery My Blog - A Touch of Grace Shout to the Lord, all the earth let us sing, power and majesty, praise to the King!
Registered: April 20, 2006 Location: Michigan's Upper Peninsula Posts: 34762
Sun, Sep 23, 2007 @ 5:49 PM
How gorgeous!!! I love what you've done and I just wish I could see it IRL with the vellum -- I am sure it is just so, so beautiful!!! I love your stamped images -- so soft and pretty!!! What a fabulous gift from the heart!!!
Linda, you are amazing! I believe that you are my favorite SCS artist (and have been for quite some time!) Thank you for sharing your beautiful work with all of us.