A Bit of Whimsy; "Everyday Chronicles of Imperfection"

Sometimes, when I am in the middle of another hilarious story, I'll see this look on a face that says "No way," and all I can add at the end is; "WAY!". For the simple reason that the fun and funniest things often happened to our own family. (Try asking about the stop in the St. Joseph, Mich, Kilwin's for ice cream and the walk through the downtown of our four family members...with ChiefHubby leading the way. He stops suddenly at the corner as the light MUST'VE changed to red...and none of the rest of us noticed. The back of Chief's ultra-white Tshirt had a permanent smiley face...in regular chocolate flavor. :D  lol I'm giggling over just that part even though it's 3am as I type this, and I'm ready to drop.) The life we lived here was- and still is- fun. That's not to say we didn't have our ups and downs like every other married couple with two kids and a busy life. We had our share of problems and stress along the way, that's for sure! But, I thank GOD each and every day we not only got through all of it; we came through still together!

I had planned for a long while now, to try something 'whimsical' and on the 'steampunk' side that I absolutely LOVE. I was disappointed to find I didn't have the product needed for the CC3 Challenge #22, so I was going to have to sit that one out. The kids were all on my mind (remember that they are now all busy with their own lives and don't live nearby any longer- the younger son and wife now live clear up in Minnesota- and the older one lives just 20 mins away, but works the same heavy schedule as the ChiefHubby), and the above story came into those thoughts. I wondered how I could make something out of the crazy things that seem to happen to ONLY US. And the above photo shows what I came up with. I'll take you through it with photos with captions on them...



After making my own tissue-printed paper (plain roll of tissue paper used in sewing- my mother gave me a roll of hers) using some of my fave TH stamps... I started with an 8 1/2 x 11 manilla cardstock, cut in half and trimmed into a tag shape. I used the same technique we did on our January Tags, and ended up with a cool steam-punky, old-looking background. I used some of my stock of frame matboard to cut several cages from the TH Alterations Die "Caged Bird". 



Here, you can see the cage as it is taking shape by my trimming, fitting, and sanding until each piece of three cages fit together to form one large cage. I was doing this while the TH Alterations "Weathered Clock" pieces dried from the Distress Black Soot Paint coating. I cut those from TH grungepaper, and since I wanted it to stand out from the background, I doubled up on those cuts. 




Here, you can see how each of the three cuts of "Caged Bird" fit together, and as an added touch- I used my shears to slice some TH Tissue Tape (in musical notes because both our boys were in Band for 8 yrs each) to hold the top layer togeher.




Now you'll see what I meant from the last caption "top layer" being held together with tissue tape...I made another layer of just the OUTSIDE of the cage and used Glossy Accents to hold it all around on the underside. Then I added a THIRD 'layer' by using the EDGES of the pop-dot pkg. The edges are very thin- the thinnest part in the pkg- and saves alot of struggle trying to slice the larger pieces. They fit perfectly under all that second layer. I now had a fully sided cage that was 'empty' in the middle.




So, I needed some 'people' to make up our family as we were way back when the boys were younger and we were doing all the traveling with them. I started out with older boys and a dapper older guy- all cut from my TH French stash paper. But then I found.....ME!! This lady was found after I got the idea to google some old cabinet cards. I was looking at all the ones I have of actual family we are descended from that I scanned off some time back, when it hit me "why not just use some ppl off of the same cabinet cards from the net??" , and I found the perfect lady, followed by the perfect vintage FIRECHIEF!! Then followed the boys. Add some wings, hats, and trinkets from my stash...and they became US! The funny part is the lady is actually pulling on her collar. But she looks like she just MIGHT BE PLUGGING HER EARS...LOL!!! Yeah, this deaf gurl can ignore it when she wants ta!




So here, you see our OlderCaptFFSon...dressed in a little Sailor outfit (a nod to his NAVY girl, whom we love!). He's standing with his Dad, but sneaking away at the same time. This was my way of showing he's 'with us' always but is out on his own, and they are living their own lives also. :D




And this little swingin' fella is our YoungerPurdueNukeEngineerSon. He is actually swingin' away waaaay up there in Minnesota (a nod to his Purdue Edu English-with Distinction- Teacher wife; the hat where he works at Prairie Island Nuclear Facility- where she hopes she will be teaching)!  




And here is the ChiefHubby with his red wings of course. You'll notice that the clock key is sitting nearby where he can pick it up and wind up the clock and get his wife moving and following him wherever he goes. Ahhhh! But therein lies the conundrum...




And here is the Chiefy's Wifey. Since the Chief and the boys are in their usual colors (red for David, green for Brian, and blue for Brett) as I have always done....I put myself in my usual pink. I added a bit of bling to my wings and outfit and it turned out lovely!




The conundrum is: Wifey has the key to the bird cage and it's tangled all around her while she is busy ignoring the noise of the singing going on in the cage. The ChiefHubby can't get to the key since he is in the cage, but he has the clock that controls the time and all that the Wifey is doing. Of course, he can reach the clock to wind it up and keep her busier, but she doesn't have time to get the key and let him out. The kids just go on doing their own things the entire time.



I thought the title was cute. And I added an IdeOlogy Monocle to the pin to highlight part of the title, along with the thoughts of "no matter how much we WISH and try so hard to STEER our lives and the things that happen...it doesn't always go the way we plan.



This was the reason for having two tags- one for the backside to stand alone with nothing else on it.



You can see the Silver Metalic Alcohol Ink splattered when the backgrounds are seen from the flat perspective. LOVE that effect! 



And this was how I chose to display my Whimsical Tag! As you can see, I have a couple of others on my trunks that I made in the past couple of years. The very bottom tag was one of the Tags of 2013 and the one on the upper left was another one of those 'just playing' times in my studio. The trunks are used to store fabrics, yarn, lights, boxes, and other stash items that take up space but are still used often enough to need to be kept around. 



Thanks again for taking the time to peek in! I hope to be back getting busy with CC3Challenge #23 this weekend, since I just got my March Tag done yesterday and am posting it next. :D

Once SUMMER finally gets here, I won't be in my studio much at all. But I'll still be crafting away- with plans to make a couple of blankets for a Children Adoption Shower gift.

See you on the flip post, and Happy Blogging !