Inspired by Helen Chiltern at PaperArtsy

Good Morning and welcome to Magpieheaven! This post has to be a quick one, as the greengages have ripened in the Magpie Garden and today has to be spent in cooking greengage tarts! I've been so busy creating art dolls for Mary Jane Chadbourne's wonderful workshop over at The Artful Gathering that I'd lost all track of time. However, I just had to have a go at Helen's lovely, quick make at PaperArtsy, which I would like to link up today: you can find out all about it here. I think these little Stampbord handbag danglies would make brilliant gifts! I wish I'd had time to create more, but the greengages were demanding my attention! Anyway, tomorrow is another day! I decided to back mine with some scraps of paper from my stash. All my Chatsworth is gone, but I think it would make the perfect backing, if you have it.

I glued my Stampbord to some House of Zandra paper and then trimmed and sanded the edges to give a clean edge.

I then gave an aged appearance to my stampbord pieces, using Vintage Photo, Walnut Stain, Fired Brick, Squeezed Lemonade and a little Victorian Velvet. I stamped over the paper with some beautiful Sara Nauman script from her new PaperArtsy stamps, using Stazon.

I just had time to make two before getting started on the pastry! Here are the backs!

Here are the fronts. It was fun rummaging through my bits and pieces to find embellishments, even if it was against the clock! I really want to do some more of these when I have more time! I chose the Lynne Perrella images that she collected on an exploration of a Paris market, so I carried through the Parisian theme on my second one, using part of a broken pendant bought by me from another market - Spitalfields in London's East End. This was the first time I'd ever used Stampbord and I really loved it! Scraping away was great fun! In the future I'd like to experiment with borders and bolder scraping away; as I really was hurrying to finish these! I used distressed seam-binding instead of chain, but I would definitely make some more with chain.

These ladies of letters will remind me to 'Live my Dream' as they jingle and turn on my handbag! I wonder if they were able to live their dreams back in nineteenth century France? Thank you Helen and PaperArtsy for such a fun, quick and beautiful little project. These are going to find their way into some stockings come Christmas! Thank you so much for stopping by today! I'll be back with my fourth art doll soon, so please do try and visit and meet her, as she has quite a story to tell!