Flourish Friday - July 24

I'd like to thank everyone for their prayers and thoughts for my son, Matt. He safely arrived home from his mission trip to Panama. He said it was the best experience he ever had with his youth group. I am still unpacking from the IAMPETH convention. It was truly a wonderful week, and I want to blog more about it in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, I am preparing to host a bridal shower for my niece this Saturday. Pictured are two photos of Taylor and her fiancee, Matt. I learned this technique from Barbara Calzolari during the Round Robin night at IAMPETH. You glue a black and white photo to some nice paper and then rough it over with a fine sandpaper or emery board. This will pull the blue ink off the photo and give it a vintage or shabby chic look. Then using white ink (I used Dr. Martin's Bleedproof White), you letter over the photo and extend the lettering onto the paper. You can stress the paper further once the lettering is dry, by crumpling the paper or rubbing in a little grime. I then sprayed it with fixative. You can see Barbara demonstrating her technique on my Flickr account here. Thanks to Barbara for teaching a very, cool technique! Check out Barbara's incredible work for the Pope and the G8 Summit here.

The 2010 IAMPETH Convention will be at the Hilton Walt Disney World the week of August 9th. If you enjoy pointed pen work, or want to learn pointed pen, I highly recommend attending. Happy Flourish Friday!