Che'ri

Isn't this a lovely layout? I just love when I have a layout that I can use four photos on it. I used French Manor and Summer in Paris for this along with my Cuttlebug to prepare the mats for my photos. The sketch is from Jana Eubank and is simply elegant, don't you think? This layout was made for a lovely lady and I must admit I will probably make another to use with a different title and filled with family photos.

Look at these lovely papers! They are all Cosmo Cricket paper and wow are they nice to cut with.

I had to take a close up of the paper so you could see the sheen in the paper, isn't it awesome? I used it to make the scallops edge and the photo mats on my page. They were cut from the French Manor cart page 56 the scallop border. I welded two together to form this beautiful border edge.

The flowers were made from French Manor. I made them in 5 different sizes and altered print and solid paper to make them appear to have more dimension. I turned the edges up slightly and held each layer together with a large glue dot to add even more dimension. for the center of the flower I used Zip Dry glue as it is clear drying and applied 16 to 20 tiny pearls to form a 1/4 inch center of pearls in each flower. Didn't they turn out awesome?

Here you can see a close up of the photo mats allowing a beautiful embossed edge with help of the Swirl folder and my Cuttle Bug.

I applied 7 pearls to each scallop, and in this photo you can see how nice the flowers look.

Here is another close up. Since I was making this for someone else I took plenty of photos.

Don't you just love the pearls on this layout?

Here is another closeup of the pearls and a flower.

I hope I am not boring you with these closeups but I really like the paper on this and it was so hard to get a good photo of the shimmering effect it has.

Here is a good close up of the light hitting it just right.

Well I sure hope you like today's project. I am kind of sad to see it go. Thank you for joining me today and for your sweet words of encouragement. Your comments continue to inspire me to share with you.

Gift Box for a Wedding Present

Hi all, Becky Roper here from Journey to Creativity. I hope you are all having a great summer, it's been a busy one for me. So let's get started, first I want to thank Sheila, aka Sassy Lady, for giving me the opportunity to share with you something that has a very special meaning to me. Today I would like to share with you a box that I made for my niece's wedding and a small gift to go inside.

I started with a paper mache' box purchased from Hobby Lobby. I added little wood feet called Candle Cup that I also purchased from the wood section at Hobby Lobby.

Using the French Manor cartridge and Cricut Cuttables, Adhesive-backed Stencil Material, I cut out a stencil for the top of the box. The size was 2.5 inches and I set the pressure on high, blade at 5 and multi-cut at 4.

I cut another stencil for the front and two sides of the box using the border function. The size is 1 inch, multi-cut at 3, blade at 5, pressure at max and speed at slow.

I laid the stencil on the box and then added Spackling Paste. The paste is very rough so you will need to smooth the paste as much as you can with a trowel. The top of the box had a few sections where the paper had separated so I added paste around the edge to seal up the seams.

Remove the stencil and allow the paste to dry. After the paste dries, lightly sand so that your image is completely smooth.

I then painted the box using Anita's Acrylic paint in Cream. After the box dried I added delta paints in Village Green and Think Pink. When applying the pink and green paint, I used water to thin the paint.

Using a sponge paint brush I applied Martha Stewart Copper ink to give the box an antiqued look.

I lined the box with decorative paper.

I then added the embellishments to GLAM it up. This is always my favorite part of a project. Now for a peek at the gift.

The gift was a garter that I made for my niece's wedding. I smocked it with hearts and added a pearl at the bottom of each heart. The pearls that I used came from the brides great grandmothers jewelery. This was just a small way to have our grandmother with us at this special event.

I hope I have inspired you to do something creative that has a special meaning for you or someone in your family. I would love to hear how you will incorporate this idea into your crafting style so please leave me a comment and visit my blog.