Ahoy, me Hearties, Avast ye

 (That would translate as "Hello, my friends! - stop and check this)

How could I resist............................ The Challenge over at Simon Says Stamp is "Shiver me timbers thar be a Pirate"

In 2008 the mother in laws annual fancy dress party was "Pirates of the Caribbean"  there were some stunning costumes one of which I just have to show you as he was a dead ringer for you know who................... see what you think?

Yep if it was the real thing I would be hanging on too!! and I love the outfits we bought :)

We had a brilliant time, there was even a galleon on the lawn which we all had to have a photo taken in

Stunning don't you think - there is the Matt's mum as Ausar................. and if you look close those are skulls and crossbones on my tights 

- this is such a cool paddling pool for the children .................

Sorry got carried away.  So on seeing the challenge, just had to do create a scrap book page for my continuing album, I have not done a page for some time.  My head was saying treasure map - so that is where I started.  I recently got from Hobby Craft some plain white good quality 12 x 12 paper in a pack.  I took a plain black Bo Bunny paper and used this as the base and tore the white card on all edges very roughly.  I then drew a treasure map and added a cross for the location of the treasure and the North symbol, dead basic.......... Then I had so much fun.  

I put on my little marigolds, they are actually blue and from the husbands work, but they are a lovely tight fit and protect my hands from staining.  I got out the antique linen and vintage photo Tim Holtz distress inks and my already heavily used sponges and was ready for the off.  I used a baby wipe to wet all over the paper, I rolled, tore and crumpled the paper until it was well scruffy.  I then used the antique linen and sponged and rubbed all over to give the base colour for the map.  Once I had done this I started on the vintage photo. I worked heavily on the edges till it looked as if I had actually burnt it at the party to stop people finding my treasure (my glass of wine and the large plate of dessert)  I continued until I was happy with the overall effect.  In fact happy was not the word, I was so impressed with the finished look that I did not want to spoil it by adding too much to the layout.  I then chose my main image and two smaller ones.  I left off the other two as it hid too much of the map.  I cut the main one out with my circle nestie, edged it in gold and printed off a computer image of a galleon wheel.  After cutting out the image of the wheel I had edged this in black copic to make it pop off the page a little more.  I used my copics to colour the letters from pink to a deep red and to colour the flower from a dark burgundy to black.  I spritzed the flower with gold.  The rings I found lying around and just looked good and the flag is another computer print.

The lace behind the flower is created using a technique that Ruth @ Altered Geisha's Crafty Musings had suggested in a comment recently, she had said to use fine jewelery wire to thread through and it worked an absolute treat (thank you Ruth)

The lace I decided to use  as on the posh pirate outfit that I bought it has lovely lace around the cuffs.  I tried to keep the colours to the black, gold and reds familiar with pirates.

Well I hope you like it , here you go

So here are the images for you

Whist this has been drying and whilst I was in the distressing mood, I have also been working on a little vintage number, will post this shortly.

Thank you all for your recent lovely comments, which always make me smile

Hugs and happy weekend crafting

Kate xx