Dostoevsky & Me

Hello!  Remember the string printing technique that I showed you last month?  I wanted to try it on a layout, and Color Rooms palette #135 provided the perfect opportunity.  This palette called for combining fuchsia, golden green, and eggplant purple with a floral pattern.  To me, that combination seems beautifully macabre.  I know, I know, that's a strange description.  It just seems to fit.  And it called to mind these photos, from my 1995 visit to Dostoevksy's grave in Russia.  (As the author of works like Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky would, I believe, approve of the concept of the "beautiful macabre.")

Supplies: journaling spot & small floral paper by My Mind's Eye; script paper & large floral paper by Echo Park; remaining papers by American crafts; title stickers by Lily Bee; butterfly die cuts by Dufex; roses by Marianne Design; badge by October Afternoon; tulle ribbon by Wyla; paints by Deco Art and Ranger; stamps and ink by Hero Arts; sewing thread by Singer; embroidery floss by DMC; pen by Zig; book papers xeroxed from Russian Stories: A Duel Language Book, ed. Gleb Struve (Dover Publications, 1990); upcycled postage stamps and spool.

I photocopied some pages from a quirky short story that Dostoevsky wrote about a man who begins to hear voices from beyond the grave while he is sitting in a cemetery.  (I assure you that I heard no such voices when I visited Dostoevsky's grave!)  The Russian page and the English page are from different parts of the story--I was going for variety.  Next, I mixed some green and white metallic paints and used the mixture to create a string print on the xeroxed pages.  I thought the effect was a bit ethereal, especially with the addition of purple stamped butterflies.  Near the base of the photo I adhered a kooky October Afternoon badge, which I had edged with tulle ribbon and painted lightly with the same mixture of green and white paint.

The journaling on the page reads: "It meant a lot to this book-loving, English-speaking girl to visit Dostoevky's grave at Alexander Nevsky Monastery."  (You may remember that I created a page about this monastery earlier this year.)

The Queen Elizabeth stamps represent me, as an English speaker.  I've been collecting British stamps for a long time, and I think it's interesting that I have Queen Elizabeth stamps in almost every color.  I certainly had the right colors for this palette!

The postage stamps are one of three instances of recycling in this layout.  The second bit of recycling I did was to take an old spool with a raised lip and turn it into a circular stamp.  This is how I created the row of overlapping circles that you see in the photo below.

The final recycled element on this layout is the negative portion from a sheet of Dufex metallic butterfly die cuts.  Along with the roses, tulle, and Liquid Pearls that I used on this layout, the butterflies impart a sense of softness and beauty, which (I hope) prevent the layout from becoming too spooky.

This was a different sort of layout for me, but it's fun to do something different every once in a while.  I hope you enjoyed it!  TFL.