Good Boy

Hi ya everyone - this is Melissa from MelissaMade.  I'm thrilled to be back at She's A Sassy Lady for another tutorial.  Thank you Sheila for having me back!  Today, I want to share with you a project I put together for a friend who just moved into her very first apartment alone and got her very first puppy!  I was so happy for her to have found some new freedom that I had to put a little something together for her. 

This project has a feature that I've been doing for awhile and that's picture matting.  I've made a number of these for friends and as scrapbook pages and really love the technique and wanted to pass it on to you.  This is a little different from my normal matting because without a frame I wanted the bottom circle to show on the outside.  This might sound a bit complicated but really it's very easy to do with a Gypsy, Design Studio or Sure Cuts A Lot.  You will need to start with two layers.  I typically label them Bottom and Top  to keep myself straight (bottom refers to the bottom matting piece and top refers to the top - clever huh?).  So, in this tutorial I speak in terms of the bottom layer and the top layer.  I will also talk a lot about shadow and regular in terms of shapes and fonts.  One important thing to remember - the shadow goes on the TOP layer ALWAYS!  The regular always goes on the BOTTOM layer! 
First, I chose a really cute paper and a good matching background paper. I also bought a cork board from my local scrapbook store and some cute tacs in the shape of dogs and bones.

The top layer would be my patterned paper and the bottom is my turquoise paper.  I pulled out my Gypsy and started with two layers: Top and Bottom.  I made the largest circle possible for a 12 x 12 sheet of card stock from George and Basic Shapes and placed that on my Bottom layer.  For my top layer, I made another circle a quarter of an inch smaller then the bottom circle so you could see the turquoise edge on the outside.  This is the only time in which the top layer will contain a smaller image then the bottom layer.  Now, on my Gypsy I left both layers open (little eye open on the layer tab) so I could see both layers together.  I lined up the large circle and the small circle so that the smaller circle (top layer) was visible inside the larger circle (bottom layer). 

Next, I started working with just the bottom layer - remember using regular cuts.  I chose two rounded edge squares from George and placed them in my circle.  Next, I chose the regular font from Nursery Rhymes and  wrote out Good Boy.  I also chose a regular shaped bone from Potpourri basket.  I arranged  the letters the bone and the squares exactly how I wanted them and then moved to the top layer.  With the top layer I used all shadow cuts.  Again, I chose the shadow rounded edge squares, the shadow for the bone and shadow font and placed them on my top layer over the images on the bottom layer (remember I can see the bottom layer because I left the little eye open).  This is what it looks like together:

Finally, I cut both layers out on my Expressions and layered them together. 

I saved all the pieces - when you have writing on a layer like this you need to keep all the center pieces for your words.   

Once the two sheets were layered and adhered down, I used my sticker maker to adhere the insides of the letters. 

I also, painted the edge b/c it only came in lime green.  I took some white acrylic paint and put two layers on with a simple paintbrush. 

I also made a little card to go with using a Tiddly Ink's image. 

The little bone opens up to reveal a message.

Thanks for stopping by She's A Sassy Lady. You can stop by MelissaMade for more fun projects! Don't forget to leave your comments or ask questions!

Melissa