Happy Prima News and CSI # 25 The Old Homestead

Today I am basking in shere egotistic joy! I sent in 2 pages for the Prima May PPP and one of them actually won! the other one got featured together with a number of gorgeous other projects.

Congrats to my dear scrappy pals Lindy and Maja Stokk, as well as to  lovely fellow OUAS DT members Keren Tamir and Jolaine Frias who all were featured!

Here is first the bold and vibrant colour prompt:


And this is my winning page called "Wellies". I made it in my very early days of experimenting with mists, paints and different mediums and remember how fun it was to splat, mist and smear the stuff onto the pages.


 These are not my photos, I found them whilst browsing around different French and Swedish sites.

 
Different stamping with TH Distress Inks in Black Soot + Wild Honey + Broken China.

 
First my beloved Winsor & Newton Glass Beads Texture Gel and then Stickles and golden acrylic paint.

 


 
Just looove how that chippie swirl turned out. Slabbed on gesso, misted in awesome autumnal Cranberry Zing + Black Cherry + Juneberry Wine. Then the gel beads and gold acrylic paint. The teal is Stickles in Turqoise.

 

 

and next the featured page that I have shared earlier:



After these Prima goodies, I also have my page for the CSI #25 case file to share.
I got so caught up in the photo that I found on a Finnish site, that I actually forgot all about fitting in evidence. Have to see if I've veered off totally from the whole prompt! Here it is, my "The Old Homestead".


This photo of a timber house up in the north of Finland, austere and without frills, is so very very typical of the country houses of old. Some are still in use. It reminds me of the old faded b&w photos I have seen of my maternal grandfather's farm close to the Russian border. It also looks very much like the little house my mother grew up in together with 12 siblings.

 
A chilly, windswept autumn day with threatening gray skies and mist lurking in the woods nearby. The history of my maternal ancestry was brought up in my memory by this photo, it also gave me the title of the page.

 
Now let's see about the evidence: foliage tick, architectural and wood elements - well that will have to be the MME paper and brick stamping and the photo itself so let's say tick on that one too. Gold? naww, but does metal count? have some clouds in the photo too.

 
My main colours are definitely the milder hues of the palette with some added gray, cream and brown. There are hints of the greens and the blue, but admittedly not much at all.

 


 


 

There is quite a selection of paper collections layered in there; Prima, Glitz, MME, Pion, book page, handmade paper from India with grass, misted canvas, a crocheted doily and some other bits and bobs.

 
This fussy-cut mother and children is from Swedish Pion Design's newest collection Grandmother's Schoolbook.

In the village located in the remote forests near the Russian border where my mother grew up, everybody were related to each other by blood and inter-marriage. The whole community was very religious and confessed to a conservative lutheran movement which can still be found in Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, British Columbia among a few states in the US and Canada.

In 1902 many families left the village and started a new life in Detroit, Michigan. Among them were my maternal grandfather's aunties. In Detroit they built a new homestead, a replica of the old homestead in Finland. Also the new house was overlooking a lake and surrounded by forrests. I have met a few of my distant American cousins who have curiously followed in their ancestors' footsteps back to the village.

My mother's stories of these relatives echo like whirls of dust in my memory and I so wish I had listened more attentively when she told them to me time after time. But then they were only faceless names and had no part in my own life as teenager. Today I know where I come from and who I am, I know my own place in the story of our family.

 

Once again dear ladies, you have patiently listened to my ramblings and kindly looked at my photos. Thank you warmly!

Have a really great rest of the week! Take care!

Toodelipip! xoxo Eila