More Crafty Goodness!!

I needed some zen today, and hid out in my craft room. I wanted to make a gift for a dear friend, and decided to copy a project designed & taught by Lisa Pace at the 2010 Artistic Journey.

Just to be clear...this is not my design. Not my idea. 100% copycat. (cuz crafters can get persnickety about stuff like that, even if it's inadvertent).

Supply list:
Maya Road shadow box
Jenni Bowlin mini-papers in a variety of red, cream & black patterns
Maya Road mini chipboard tag set and miscellaneous shapes (spool, needle, butterfly, heart, lock, key and tree)
Craft pearls (I don't know what these are called - they are half of a bead, and found on clear plastic so you can cut a string of them really easily!)
Glass glitter (silver)
Twine
Trim
3 Pearl buttons
Chalk ink - creamy brown
Craft knife
Adhesive (I used Glossy Accents, glue dots and tacky tape - yes, all THREE. hush)

The trick to this project is layering the mini tags, chipboard shapes and various paper patterns. Throw in the pearls and some glass glitter (BLING!), and a few heartfelt words from your printer, and voila!

Okok, so like, it took me most of the day to do this. But isn't it worth it???

Here are my creation steps:
1. Paint the backside of the shadow box, set aside to dry.

2. Choose the background papers - shuffled them around until I got the order I liked. I numbered the inserts and the back of the paper to keep everything together.

3. Assuming the back is dry, paint the front of the shadow box, and inside. Set aside to dry.

4. Choose the chipboard pieces that would go on top. And the paper that would go on them (again, I'm copy-catting this, so it was a little easier to choose the shapes). Then I numbered the chipboard pieces based on the squares, so I would remember which one goes where.

3. Using Glossy Accents, glue the chipboard onto the paper, and set aside to dry.

4.  Still using Glossy Accents, glue the background paper to the insert squares, and set aside to dry.

5. Lightly dab the gold chalk ink around the outer front edges of the shadow box.

6. Put a healthy dose of Glossy Accents on the chipboard that is getting glitter, add the glitter, and set aside to dry.

7. When chipboard shapes are dry, go ahead and begin to cut them out with a craft knife.

8. Outline all the chipboard shapes and the background squares with Creamy Brown Chalk ink.

9. Assemble each square. I used tacky tape to adhere the chipboard shapes to each other, and to secure in the squares into the shadow box.

Now, I will say this picture doesn't include two small personalizations I added - I still want it to be a surprise! I added an initial to the middle square (oval tag), and a date to the tag next to the tree in the lower left square).

I also wanted to share a few little tips with you that made this project come together for me (the classic imperfect crafter!).

1. It's difficult - even with a craft knife - to cut the paper around these scallop shapes. I do the best I can with the craft knife, and then refine with an emory board (nail file). Even then, it still isn't 100%. I used the creamy brown chalk ink to outline every shape - it ties all of the patterns together, and hides imperfections. In the pic above, you don't notice them. But look what happens when I blow it up:

2. I used gold chalk ink to highlight the shadow box itself. It gives some depth to it, instead of a flat black. You can really see the gold in the zoomie pics above and below.

3. I love glitter. I hate the fact that once you break out the glitter, you walk around looking like you got lost on the way to the club 15 years ago your entire household will be wearing it for weeks. I also hate the fact that glitter tends to shed with any accidental touch or bang. One way to avoid that is to seal the glitter with Glossy Accents. Keeps the shimmer, keeps the glitter in place. Especially with the glass glitter which will tarnish as time goes by.

4. Twine - this is not butcher's twine unfortunately, it's craft twine, and you need to add some sort of wax to it to keep it from driving you crazy make it easier to work with. A simple bar of white soap will do the trick. Run your length of twine through the soap a couple of times and it'll coat it just like wax. This is a trick I learned waaaay back when my mother tried to teach me to - well, I don't remember what she was trying to teach me to do (sorry mom!).

I enjoyed my day in my craft room, creating this gift for a friend.

Enjoy your new day!!