Pink n Lace Gift Box for The Shabby Tea Room

Yep, you read that right!  I won top spot for THIS card and was awarded a chance to work with The Shabby Tea Room design team for this week! I am so excited!

This week we were asked to take inspiration from the photo below AND make a gift or gift box or packaging. That was perfect for me!

I painted a paper mache box with a base coat of gesso, then with acrylic paint. The gesso helps the paint I added embossing paste using a very detailed damask stencil.

I added some feet by Tim Holtz which I distressed using white acrylic paint. I wasn’t sure how to glue them on but I found some No Nails which is a tube of super strong glue. It looks a lot like caulking but it is a different texture. It worked beautifully!

Here’s a closeup of the top. The roses are from Really Reasonable Ribbon and the white fluffy things are from Melissa Frances. I made the beaded sprigs. The layers on top are toile-stamped cardstock, then a doily, then a label die cut with a stamped edge and then all the florals. I tossed on a lot of sequins including some to accent the lace on the side of the lid. The toile-stamped paper also has a ruffled edge.

I think this is the best shot I got of the side with the lace and embossing. It’s near impossible to see the sequins since they are transparent but they do sparkle nicely.

Isn’t this a gorgeous inspiration photo? I hope you are all inspired and come and join us at The Shabby Tea Room  this week. You have until Sunday evening to play along. Just make sure you don’t forget to make a gift or gift project.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps: Vintage-PTI, toile-unknown-maybe PTI?
Ink: pretty in pink
Paper: white CS, doily (salvaged from local restaurant)
Accessories: roses-RRR, white flowers-Melissa Frances, foundations-TH, ruffled edging, lace-sewing store, paper mache box, beads and wire-Michaels, sequins-Ellen Hutson, MS paint, Making Memories paint, velvet ribbon-stash

CASE Study DT Mannequin and Roses Tag

This is my second entry for the CASE Study DT. I sooo want to be chosen. I save so many cards on Pinterest and CASE them so this DT would be perfect for me!

I CASEd the April tag by Tim Holtz. Of course I plan to link this up to that challenge too. I used almost the same technique for the background with the exception of using distress stain instead of distress paint. I added some more embellishments, made my flowers differently and added some stitch stamping. I also added some lovely shimmer with bronze distress stain.

I hope you like it. I know I would be an excellent team member. I am currently on the Unscripted Sketches DT and I haven’t missed a week since November. I hope I am chosen. Pretty please!

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps: Button Boutique-PTI
Ink: Vintage photo Distress, Archival potting soil, black-Ranger
Paper: linen CS-PTI, DP-Melissa Frances, grunge paper
Accessories: mini tattered Rose die, dress form die, hex cover plate die-PTI, shimmer mist-Tattered Angels, various distress stains, Copic refill G21, Hug Snug seam binding ribbon, button-Ebay, pearls-Kaisercraft, red, pink, ivory acrylic paints, 1/2” circle punch-SU!, Crop-a dile-WRMK, cherish charm-TH, pin-stash

Pink Rose and Flourish Card

Once again, I missed linking this up to a challenge. Fortunately, I made it for two challenges, one of which isn’t over yet! Yeah!

Not much to tell here. I used last week’s Retro Sketches for the layout. The other challenge is Joan’s Gardens weekly challenge to use pink and white only, something curvy like a flourish or vine and a flower of some kind. Check, check and check! I added some colour to the vertical piece of DP because it was too much like the background using a blend of Tattered Rose and Spun Sugar Distress inks. The colours don’t look like they match so well in this but I promise, they do IRL. The stamping isn’t at all peachy like it appears. Wish I knew more about photo editing.

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps: music wheel-SU!
Paper: Melissa Frances DP, white CS-PTI
Ink: as above
Accessories: Quinn flourish die-Memory box, ribbon-stash, lace-May Arts, MOP button-ebay, rose-Really Reasonable Ribbon, foam dots-Jody Morrow

Button Boutique Easel Card for the OCC

Vicki has come up with a brilliant challenge this week. It’s amazing how one little extra piece of CS and a couple more embellishments create such a wow card when you create it with an Easel Fold.

I really love easel cards; if you’ve never made one they are really easy. Create a top fold card base of your choice. It can be landscape or portrait. Score the card front only in half vertically. Now create your card front on a new piece of CS. Try not to have any brads or eyelets etc. sticking though on the top half. When you are finished, adhere the bottom half of the decorated card front to the bottom half of the plain card base front. When you fold on the score line, you get an easel card. The card base rests on a table and the top props upwards.

Now you need something to hold the easel in place. Almost any embellishment will do but I prefer something with a wee bit of thickness. I’ve seen cards propped open on little more than a layer of CS but seems to me that one little bump (I have kids after all) and it would pop shut. I’ve used charms, brads, lace, buttons, 3-D stickers and a sentiment strip on foam dots. Lots of choices. I don’t usually decorate the inside of my cards but this forces me to. I usually figure I work so hard on the outside, why on earth decorate the inside too?? but in this case, the result is worth the extra effort.

I absolutely had a blast creating with my new Button Boutique set by PTI. Those gals are geniuses! Check out that white button; see the little flower I made within the holes? The top is a French knot with lots of wraps and the stems and leaves are just stitched  with green embroidery floss in an arrow shape. I made 4 button cards, I didn’t use a single stamp twice and there were still stamps left! I also got the pinked die and the set that stamps little squares of ‘fabric’, I forget what it’s called. I stamped the gingham stamp on a little piece of silk I’ve had for ages from a set of swatches back from when I sewed a lot. Thank heavens I saved them because I was amazed how well the fabric stamped. To prevent bleeding, I heated the fabric right before stamping; this helps the ink dry before it can bleed AND hit it with the heat gun right after. Then I cut it with the little pinked die. I can’t wait to make more of these.

I hope you will check out the other DT members awesome projects over at the OCC blog. Make sure you leave time to play with us before the deadline of next Friday night at 11:50 PM EST. Hope to see you there!

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps: PTI
Ink: Baja-SU!, white-PTI, Antique Linen, Vintage Photo Distress Inks
Paper: blue dots-MME, all the rest-Melissa Frances, kraft-SU!
Accessories: Vintage lace, buttons-PTI, SU!; pearl, white string (button threading)-Dollarama, flower-Michaels, brad-Basic Grey, MS eyelet lace punch, Cuttlebug polka dots embossing folder, twill tape-stash, button card die, pinked die-PTI, foam dots-Jody Morrow

Shabby House Warming Gift

We got new neighbours this weekend. I was really disappointed when no one welcomed us to the neighbourhood so I was determined to say hi to our neighbours in style. I started as soon as I saw the For Sale sign, calling the real estate agent to find out the closing date.

So I made this adorable little house from a PTI template to hold some brownies I plan to take over. It doesn't look like it but it is actually a box with a detachable roof. Then I saw a recipe for caramel and I was determined to make my own. (That is a whole other story of it’s own.) So that ended up in there waiting for the brownies. I have a bit of a cold so I haven’t taken it over yet.

Here is the side, the other is the same just without the tag. I poked a hole through the button hole to attach the tag. That way if they want to remove it, the hole won’t be very noticeable. The door is stmaped with celery but it was too bright so I toned it down with glitter. It really is still too bright, I should have used moss cardstock instead.

The roof was airbrushed using another piece of punched CS as a mask. I was kicking myself that I hadn’t offset the scallops as I would have entered it in the Paper Crafts or Moxie Fab challenge to use offset scallops. Oh well. After airbrushing the ‘shingles’ the contrast was a bit stark so I continued to airbrush getting the look you see in the photos. The gable roofs were airbrushed similarly but without the masked parts.

The flower is made from scalloped music paper circles with a silk flower in the middle, I removed all the parts of the flower except the petals (it had these weird little thingies to hold the petals closer together but they showed somewhat, eww, and the stamen/pistil/whatever was ugly too) and used a brad to hold everything together. Then I placed a drop of glue on the brad head and added clear microbeads; I do wish I’d had some gold or yellow ones though.

I’ve been trying really hard to edit my photos so they won’t be so dark. They always look fine on my laptop but since the screen angle adjusts, it seems to always make me underexpose my photos or choose ones that are underexposed. GRR. Here’s hoping this is better!

Enjoy, Rebecca

RECIPE
Stamps: Home Made-PTI
Ink: chocolate chip, celery, pale plum-SU!, Antique Linen, Tattered Rose Distress ink
Paper: PTI natural white CS, chocolate CS-PTI, Melissa Frances DP, vintage music paper
Accessories: scalloped circle Nestabilities, Spellbinders tag die, silk flower-Michaels, pearls-Dollarama, Copic Airbrush system, E47 Copic Marker, MS microbeads, butterfly and border punches, PTI buttons, gold cord-SU!, vintage lace, Scor-Tape