The Golden Owl

Early in 2010 two teenage brothers, Doug and Barry Beeglecomb, discovered a locked chest hidden behind the boiler in their basement. Keeping their discovery a secret, they snuck it up to their shared room and placed it deep within the recesses of their closet, under piles of dirty clothes. Curious as they were, they waited one whole week until they were finally alone in their home one night. Using a mallet to break open the already loose lock, they were amazed to find a pile of yellowed papers and file folders, underneath which laid a velvet-wrapped object. With eyes wide open, this was the night that they discovered the Golden Owl.

The Year: 1891

The Place: Hibou, Delaware

The Secret: The Order of the Golden Owl

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This piece began with a handmade, background page created with pan pastels and acrylic paint on watercolor paper. I was going for the look of vintage, marbleized paper.

I then die cut and embossed six windows into the paper.

I shaded around the embossed edges with a pencil and hand-smudged each line.

I picked up a set of name plates at a flea market many years ago and attached one to the base of the paper using adhesive and brads.

I added a finishing touch to the edges by adding some dye ink and cutting curves into each corner to mimic the curves of both the cut-out windows and the name plate.

I dug into my very large stash of vintage tintypes and selected a group of guys. Looks like mustaches and beards were all the range in the 1890s.

I adhered a tintype behind each window and backed the whole piece with book board cut to size.

Finally, I inserted a caption into the name plate that was printed out on my computer.

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Supply List

Spellbinders Paper Art Supplies:

GC-001 Spellbinders^TM Grand Calibur® Machine

MD1-013 - Spellbinders^TM Media Mixage® Rectangles Two Dies

Preferred Promotional Partners: Imagine Crafts Inkblushers sponge

Other: vintage, tintypes, book board, watercolor paper, pan pastels, acrylic paint, dye ink, marker, pencil, vintage name plate, brads, adhesive, paint brush, scissors, guillotine paper cutter