Love Birds

Case File #72 at CSI was right up my street - a gorgeously soft but bright colour palette  - here it is (click on the image to enlarge)
CSI stands for "Color, Stories, Inspiration"  and as always, the amazing Debbi Tehrani has found a brilliant Scene for us to investigate - from this inspiration image she has taken the 5 colours, as well as ideas for design elements and journaling prompts. In order to solve the case, you must use the following clues


  • All 5 colours in The Scheme
  • At least 2 items of Evidence
  • At least 1 piece of Testimony


To help you, there is a new set of CSI Coordinates for each Case File - these are fabulous printable downloads which are designed by the talented Michele Singh and they're free to CSI members. The Coordinates for Case File #72 weren't yet available when I made my page ready for the reveal, but they are all archived so I can use them another time.

Here's how I solved the case. These wonderful photos show my grandparents during their courtship and I've included lots of symbolic trinkets - birds and bees, crochet, pearls, buttons, the broken cage, the roses, these all had significance in their later lives.  I love how Gran looks so young and innocent and Grandpa looks every inch the handsome charmer. Less than a year after this they were married with the first of six children on the way!



  • The Scheme: - I used all the colours.
  • The Evidence: doilies, labels, layered stamping, birds, book pages, bird cage, kraft background, metal.
  • The Testimony: I handwrote my journaling onto a stack of labels. It reads "Granny age 20, so young, sweet and innocent, being swept off her feet by Grandpa, her Prince Charming - handsome and debonair. About a year before they were married. 1934. Surrey.

Here are some close-ups -

 Home made spiral rose made of kraft glassine paper, gilded cherub from 13Arts, the crocheted flowers were from a Papermania Christmas set and the metal clock charm was a holiday souvenir from a bead shop in Suffolk.

The bee, butterfly and roses are Cosmo Cricket Evangeline chipboard stickers
 You can see my "Scrap Roulette" doiley here, and a page from a dictionary about love and courtship
 The Tando Creative bird cage was roughed up and coloured with Distress Inks in Black Soot and Rusty Hinge
The background was created with collage tissue and gesso and more Distress Ink.

This week I thought I would be crafty and combine four challenges into one layout! As well as solving CSI Case File #72, I used the sketch by Gabrielle Pollacco for the Scrap365 May sketch challenge. However, it turns out that I can't enter it for that one because the end date is 16th and the CSI reveal date is the 17th and I wouldn't want to let the cat out of the bag too soon! Still, it was a lovely sketch to use all the same and I've tried to emulate Gabrielle's beautiful romantic style as well - quite a departure from my usual style I think, but I really enjoyed he adventure!
So that's two challenges - the third one is for the final challenge of last weekend's brilliant blog event at Jennifer Grace Creates - this was to create a project inspired by the theme "Free as a Bird" and there is a fantastic prize on offer for the winner.
And last but not least - I haven't forgotten about the Scrap Roulette challenge for King's Head Crafters -    each of us puts a mystery item into the bag and the challenge is to use that item on a project before we next meet. My mystery items were some little doiley shaped journaling spots and I've used two of them here... so that's FOUR CHALLENGES IN ONE  and I think they all dovetailed together very well (hehehe "dovetailed" - did you see what I did there?!)

You still have over a week to have a go yourself - check out the gallery at CSI for some amazing inspiration!

TFL Annie :o) xxx

Comments

Jennifer Grace said…
This is a lovely page, so full of detail and it feels very special. I love the broken birdcage, and the pearls. And the title is romantic and sweet!

Thanks for entering my challenge! x
Annie Claxton said…
Thanks again for a fun weekend - lots of inspiration!
Gorgeous Annie....love the beautiful details and old photo's!