Ring a ring O'Roses..............

Good morning!

Here is my mid week post and it's an entry that I've prepared for the current Allsorts Challenge of "Ring a ring O'Roses"

http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/week-415-ring-ring-o-roses.html

I have taken some photo's along the way so lets see how I get there with this one.

As with all of my artwork, I have a good think about it before I get going and I wanted to put the history and a feeling for the nostalgia in to this piece.  We must remember that many relate this nursery rhyme to the great plague where Ring a ring O'Roses was thought to represent the rosy rash caused by the plague and the pockets full of posies were thought to be posies of herbs carried to hide the terrible smells.  A tissue,  a tissue we all fall down was of course part of the dreadful symptoms and the falling was the inevitable if you caught the plague.  The circle of children playing and dancing round in a ring to the nursery rhyme holds special memories for most of us I'm sure!   This wasn't just a nursery rhyme, this nursery rhyme had a reason and a meaning, caused great upset and trauma yet gave so many children such fun - a strange thought isn't it when you think about it...... Well, although a bit of a sad origin, it is also a much loved and well recognised nursery rhyme to all of us so lets see how I saw it in my mind on a piece of artwork.

So, I set sail with an idea in my mind!  I have started with a lovely piece of sheet music (paper) and stamped out my rose which is a Kaisercraft one.  I have used two tones of archival ink as at this stage on the stamp - wasn't 100% sure of the mediums that were to be used and archival will take most things thrown at it! I very quickly clear embossed over the top before the ink dried.

OK, I've used some ink sprays here, a couple of Imagination crafts mix media sprays and a Creative Expressions one too.

 The paper buckled a little which of course it will but I knew that it was going over a canvas so that didn't worry me at this stage.

I added a little touch of gold gilding wax over the embossing powder to just highlight the roses a little and over stamped some of the roses in black to crisp them up a bit.

Here I have used matt Mod Podge over the front of the canvas and the back of the music paper and laid the canvas on the back of the artwork.  I then went around the back of the canvas edges (having cut across the corners with scissors) and the edges of the paper with the Mod Podge and folded the edges in to neaten.

Neat and tidy and nice and thick on the canvas now with no wrinkles. Allow to dry - doesn't take long.

Here a sentiment has been added that I thought appropriate "Cherish the times we spend together" also from Kaisercraft and I have used some Clarity Stamp wee folk (a little girl and a little boy) to stamp the ring of children.  This was completed by stamping a girl and boy on to tissue paper and reversing them to form the "ring".

I then highlighted the children with a white pen.

So here we are! I mounted the covered canvas on to a piece of plain card stock to pop it from the rest of the card.  (I also added some embossing powder to the roses on the canvas at this stage too). That went on to a layer of sheet music that I had distressed with scissors and stained with  distress ink and that went on to the main card which had been stamped with the same rose, coloured with distress ink and a distress oxide ink.  I used a Sheena Douglass stencil at the top "Remember When" and I have used Clarity Stamp alphabet to stamp out Ring a ring O'Roses at the bottom.

I was pleased with this, It was exactly what I was aiming for, the reminiscence of a wonderful nursery rhyme, the children playing and the history that so many fell to this dreaded disease.

Has this brought back memories of dancing in a ring and falling down?  Do you "remember when".

I would like to enter this in to the Allsorts challenge of "Ring o ring O'Roses":-

http://allsortschallenge.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/week-415-ring-ring-o-roses.html

Allsorts are celebrating their 8th birthday this Saturday so don't forget to pop on over to check out whats happening there this coming Saturday!

Hope you enjoyed your journey with me today, thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xxx