Vintage stamps

 

Edit: I took my own advice and added a sentiment, with a brown drop shadow and coffee dyed lint to help it stand out. Still not perfect, but I'm much happier with it now it has a strong focus.

Branka has chosen "Vintage" for her theme week at the 52 Christmas Card Throwdown.

This is such a great theme - and hard to do as it's so broad! It took me a while to settle on an idea.

My background is a letter to Santa that I wrote in Word, used an old fashioned handwriting font, then printed onto coffee dyed paper.

I folded and crumpled, and stained further with vintage photo distress ink.

The stamps are cut from design paper, inked, the mounted onto cream and cut with pinking scissors. You could use a small hole punch for a more authentic look but I didn't have time! I stamped postmarks onto them, and added the "1st" from a stamp stamp.

I added twine to add to the postage feel, and used a grey pencil for a drop shadow around the stampes to make them stand out.

The mount is an olive green, inked in brown.

I'm not sure this works completely. The background is a bit plain, and the composition a bit off, it needs more of a frame and a focal point. Maybe I'll tinker later - a die cut large sentiment in the olive green might work!

 

 

 

 

To play along with this challenge, hop over to the 52CCT blog for more inspiration!

The challenge is open for a week, until Friday 24th June.