Precious Things

I'm playing catch-up this week with my various projects and this is my most recent contribution to The Documented Life Project 2016, done in my 8 x 8" Dylusions journal. The March theme remains: Seeking Treasure - finding value in the small things. The art challenge this week is: Add Leaves. 

Some elements also creeped in from other spreads I was working on at the same time, working some pages while other ones were drying and in the process some cross-contamination took place. I added a mirror to these pages too even though that particular challenge was on the Colour Me Positive project. But after all, mirrors are treasures too!

The leaves were added both in the background (using a stencil) as well as in the foreground in the shape of self-adhesive felt ivy leaves (I think I obtained them from Alpha Stamps some years back). 

I was lucky enough to come across the image of Charlemagne holding his Holy Roman Empire (not exactly a small treasure but a treasure none the less!)  in a book review in one of the Sunday papers. The image comes from a painting by Caspar Johann Nepomuk Scheuren and dates from the 19th Century, so no chance this is an realistic image of the great emperor who lived in the 9th Century. The image however, seemed made for the Finding Treasure theme so I gratefully incorporated it onto the spread. 

I also found a suitable quotation after some searching. It's by Oscar Wilde and it reads: " Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you".

I added some interactive tabs on the page by punching 3 shapes from previously gelli plate printed pages and writing the words: Riches, Treasures and Precious Things on them and adhering them to the spread with washi tape and some string. 

The final touch was the butterfly postage stamp, echoing the butterflies on the washi tape.