Snow Day Projects

We had a snow day on Friday (Feb. 22), so this post is a little out of order but I wanted to add the projects that I worked on that day.

First, I had three frames that I got at the Dollar Tree (one of my favorite places to shop - and yes, I know I'm nuts). I almost never buy one of anything that I am going to alter, which is why I had three. I had seen so many great samples using SU's Always stamp set and I wanted to play with that and my new Berry Bliss double-sided designer paper. I actually started out with one thing in mind but came up with this -

I stamped the heart image in VersaMark on Chocolate Chip CS and embossed with White EP. Then I cut it out. The bird image was stamped with VersaMark on Purely Pomegranate CS and embossed with Clear EP and cut out. The little branch in the upper right-hand corner was not embossed but stamped in Chocolate Chip ink on Close to Cocoa CS, cut out (I'll tell you the trick a little later) and I used a drop of Crystal Effects on the berries to make them stand out. The medallion next to the heart is a motif punched from the Berry Bliss paper and then trimmed. I used one of the smaller flower images from the stamp set in a Build-a-Brad on the cut out motif.

The layers of the frame are held together with little silver clips which are hidden under the ribbon on each side. The glass that comes on the front of the frame is put in the back of the stack of layers because I wanted to have that 3-D effect and it can't just be discarded because the thickness is needed to make the clips effective.

Now for the trick I mentioned - when I cut out small detailed images I trim away as much of the outside as possible first. Then I get out my little pack of 3x3 post-it notes. Put the trimmed image on the sticky part of the post-it note and then cut it out. The post-it gives you something to hold onto while you're cutting as well as giving the very fine, or skinny parts of the image some substance so they don't tear off.

The second project that I worked on that snowy Friday was again a $ find, but not from the Dollar Tree. They were from the $ bin at Michael's. They have these fruit-scented jar candles for a buck a piece, and although I normally stay away from scented items because of my allergies, I liked the scent from the strawberry and the cherry one and in the new SU Ocassions Mini there is a new stamp set called Tart and Tangy that has both a strawberry and a cherry image. And, oh, let me also mention, that there is double-sided designer paper that matches. So here are the results of my playing around with those items.

and from the top -

When looking at the top it may appear that I used a large scallop punch, but although I do have a large one, I did not use it. Instead I tried something new. I punched a 1 3/8" circle in my CS and then used the SU scallop punch around that circle. What you get is a ring of scallops the size of the scallop punch. I punched two of these for each top. You have to snip the ring once and then gently bend the scallops so that the ring expands - I'll try to post step-by-step pics at another time. The large circles on the lids were cut out using the Coluzzle. I then used my mono on the edge of the back of the circle - completely around the circle - and then adhered the reshaped scallops to it. Voila - you have a larger scallop from two smaller scallops (actually, for this, the complete second scallop was not necessary, there was some left over which I cut off and will undoubtedly use for something else at a later date!).