End of an Era Shadowbox Frame

This is my latest design team project for CraftyCutting design team. Craftycutting design and laser cut all sorts of boxes, frames, shapes and albums. The products are really sturdy and are great for every occasion. For this project I have used the greyboard shadowbox frame. These are €7.50 each and are really versatile. My theme was schooldays, so I decided to incorporate a photo of my youngest girls. The last of my children is set to finish Primary school in a couple of weeks, so this was particularly poignant. 

The finished project

The shadowbox frame comes flat packed and so is easy to decorate before putting it together. I painted everything black to start. I then covered the inside back panel with patterned paper and book pages. The paper that I used is from Graphic45, a collection called ABC Primer, (perfect for this project) with lots of elements that can be cut up and used to make the scene more three dimensional.

All of the insides and the front of the frame were also covered with patterned paper from the collection. I then applied some red texture paste through a stencil to the front of the frame and some white texture paste through a star stencil to the front. I added some gilding wax to the stars to make them pop.

I next cut some bunting and fussy cut lots of images including a photo of my DD first day at school. It was then simply a matter of adding all of the elements to the frame. I hope you like it and don't forget to pop over to Craftycutting to get your own shadowbox.

Some details

St. Patrick's Day mini shamrock album

This month on the Crafycutting Design team, I have been playing with the Shamrock Mini album. I decided to go full on Irish with it just in time for St. Patrick's Day. I don't really do much decorating around the Paddy's Day holiday, so I decided to make a little book with the old Irish Blessing in it.

 

 

I covered each of the pages with green and orange paper and painted the 'stems' in green. I then soften the edges of the album using white paint. For the cover I made a little rosette from green grosgrain ribbon and a little white lace, in the style of a St. Patrick's Day badge. I added a gold celtic knot button on top. Finally I added some gold gemstones. 

 

I used lace and a felt flower cut up to form a shamrock. The white shamrock is a rub-on. The text of the blessing was created using a tiny set of alphabet stamps. 

 

These pages were decorated with an Irish Dancing dress, a doily and some green felt flowers.



 

Again I used a doily on this page with some green gemstones. On the rhs is a claddagh.

 

This page was quite busy so I chose to just highlight one of the arrows with gemstones and add a little pint of green beer to the right page.

 

 

The final pages have some rub-ons added.

 

I hope you enjoyed my little album. Pop over to www.craftycutting.com to purchase the mini album, it costs only €2.40 for the 4"x4" album, a great project to do with the kids.

 

 

 

 

Christmas Cake Stand for Craftycutting

Hi everyone, I'm back again with another lovely project for Craftycutting. This time I have altered one of the new cake stands. The stand is made from mdf which has been laser cut. It slots together and once decorated can be taken apart and stored flat. I am definitely going to need one of these for Birthdays and Easter too. I may even decorate one for Halloween. The possibilities are endless.

 

I covered the bare mdf stand with Christmas themed patterned paper and slotted the stand together.

I then covered the two "tiers" with paper, cut out some additional images and layered them on, before finally finishing with a couple of coats of a matt varnish to protect the papers and allow for wiping clean.

 

The edges were finished with a punched border and some sparkly ribbon.

If you would like to see the finished project please come along to the Craftycutting stand at the Knit and Stitch Show in the RDS Dublin from the 31st October to the 2nd November.

 

 

Another Shadow Box

Two days and two posts, what's going on!?!
Inspiration is the key. I love to get new products as I find that I get excited and and my brain starts to click with ideas. This was the case when I got the shadow boxes from craftycutting.com.  I could see so many possibilities.  Yesterdays post showed a Halloween scene, whereas today I have a very different scene.

For this project I wanted to test just how sturdy the boxes were. I love to use glue, paint and texture paste in my projects. I glued book pages all over the frame as a background. I then applied a thin layer of white gesso over the top. On top of this layer I added texture paste and additional paper. The next step was to add lots of paint in different colours. Next I cut some house shapes from page strengthened sheets and covered these in paper and fabric. The tree stems and the grass mound in front of the frame were also cut from strength tenders, have I told you just how much I love this product? Some corrugated paper made up the paths and white paper for the clouds. The houses, trees and clouds were added with the wording added to finish. 

September Design Team project for Craftycutting

I am so excited to be chosen to be part of this wonderful team and look forward to creating lots of projects with the wonderful products from craftycutting.com My first design team package arrived last week. I couldn't wait to get started. As Halloween is fast approaching I decided to use the shadow box to make a Halloween scene. Carol had also included some of the lovely new Graphic45 'an Eerie Tale' paper, so I used these to cover the box and to fussy cut lots of silhouette images. I also used one of the great cut-outs of a spider which I embossed with black and purple embossing powders. Another product which I love is the cardboard page strengtheners. I have used these in a couple of different ways here. Firstly I covered a piece of cardboard with black paper, embossed it with a wood embossing folder and then diecut a tree from it. For the house, I embossed a piece of cardboard with a lined folder and cut it into strips. I stuck these stripes onto another piece of cardboard and cut out the rickety house. I then inked the house with black ink and added some acetate for windows.

Hope you like the project and will try something like it for yourself.

Prima altered metal frame project

A while ago I was given the beautiful Prima Metal frame by Kate from Www.createwithkate.com. I have only just got around to doing a project with it this week. The frame itself is so lovely that I didn't want to change it in any way.  So I set about gathering lots of paper, resin, flowers,lace and vintage goodies. 

For the background I used Prima seashore paper and a piece from Prima Everyday Vintage which reads Moments captured. I used texture paste through a stencil and sprayed the whole thing with Prima Bloom spray in Soft Teal. I used this spray throughout to tie all of the pieces together. Next I took one of Finnabairs metal pieces, painted it and sprayed it and then sprayed a Prima resin frame with the bloom spray too. The spray settled in all of the grooves in the frame, giving , I think, a lovely effect.

I was lucky to be gifted a lot of vintage jewellery and lace recently and have used some pieces here. The pearl necklace, the strip of gemstones and the quirky little watch face can be seen here. I have used some old french lace and tiny loose pearls in the background. Finally lots and lots of flowers, some of which have been sprayed with the soft teal bloom spray, have been added inside and out. I love how it turned out.

The finished frame.

Crafty Cutting Design Team application

I have decided to apply to be on the design team for Craftycutting design team and this is my application post. I have been using Craftycutting products since they started out. The bookmarks were the first things I altered. They are made of a great heavy duty greyboard which allows for use of all sorts of products on top, including paint, paper, paste etc. More recently the product range has widened to include laser cuts and many more die cut shapes. My favourite product is the sheets of 12 x 12 grey board which I can use to make boxes and cut to whatever shapes I want and add to mixed media projects.

Frame altered using paper and finished off with laser cut starfish and dolphin.

Mixed media canvas using greyboard cut into shapes and covered with paper and fabric.

This is a table decoration made for our Easter table. The bunny is part of the bunny bunting pack, which contains an amazing 6 bunnies to alter.

I also made an Easter banner with the other bunnies. I love these.

These photos show a custom cut album which has been altered.

Configurations Book

Today I am sharing a project that i recently completed using the Tim Holtz small Configurations Book. I must say I love these keepsake books as you can really go to town on the external decoration and then have a lovely surprise inside.

This first photo shows the finished interior with the little matchbook mini album out of its box. The papers used were a mixture of Prima Devine and Melissa Frances Attic Treasures.

Each internal box was decorated and filled with trinkets. I chose to turn one of the boxes back to front and cover it with paper.

This is yhw matchbook album open. I used a mixture of journal cards and patterned paper for the pages.

To make sure the book stayed closed, I punched a hole in the lid and passed some seam binding through.

I secured the seam binding in place using a Prima resin piece and some of the flowers.

The lid was covered first with paper and then I applied paste through a stencil in different areas. Next I added the fliwers and leaves. I then gessoed the whole thing using a light coat and removing it in some places with a baby wipe. I spritzed the cover with gold and pearl perfect pearls mists. Finishing touches were a key, brad, butterflies and a couple of resin pieces. All edges were finished with Treasure Gold wax gilt.

Prima TV

I recently purchased a gorgeous TV from createwithkate.com. It is designed by Ingvild Bloume (hope I spelt that right) for Prima. The TV is metal and has a lovely aged finish. The back opens and you can fit a little scene inside. I was so excited I made 2 little boxes to fit inside as I want to change the scene for each season.
The first scene is for spring.

I covered the inside of the box using Tim Holtz paper stash Wallflower. I cut some pussywillow from the garden and added them. I wrapped some flower buds around one of the stems and added some larger flowers to the r.h.s. Finally I added a little nest and eggs.

For my second scene I used the new Graphic45 By the Sea papers to cover the box. I fussy cut the lighthouse from one of the sheets and added it to one side. The beach hut is a little birdhouse turned back to front and covered with paper. I used a sandy coloured glitter and added some shells and a wooden bead for a beachball.

Always trying to catch up!

It's been a while! My only excuse is that I don't have a working computer and my last mobile phone was shockingly bad, so now I have what my brother-in-law calls a proper phone, so I will endeavour to keep up.
 My mojo got up and left me at Christmas time and has only just popped its head over the parapet. This is in no small part due to the wonderful weekend which I have just spent at the Create with Kate party in Athlone. The gorgeous new products that my favourite companies have released blew my mind.

An overview

The box is a recipe box by Kaisercraft which I painted in Blue sky paint by Ecogreen. The colour was perfect with the Couture Collection papers by Graphic45. There are five openings in the front and sides of the box, which can be used to put photos in. I didn't want to do this however,  so instead I used one of the fab new dies from Tim Holtz and Sizzix. It is a lovely lattice which has been designed so thatched pattern can be repeated and joined up to create something much larger. 

The lid

Once I had everything painted I started to cover the box with patterned paper. I wanted the sides to be quite simple so I chose the black and cream stripe In the side openings I infilled with a gorgeous blue lattice. In the front opening I layered a black lattice onto another paper for contrast. On the lid I used one of the cutaways and a ticket and added a bow in the black and cream paper, cut with another new Tim Holtz die. I added a door plate and some flowers and a little crystal knob. 

The inside

The box comes with five dividers, each of which I painted and covered with different papers.

I added some cutaways and some stamps and tickets.

Lastly I made some cards to go inside.  All of the materials are available from www.createwithkate.com