The Cuttlebug Spot Altered Frame

This week at The Cuttlebug Spot we were asked to alter frames. I am totally loving these altered projects for a change. My frame is $1.00 a 8x8 plain wooden one from M's. I first applied a coat of gesso to give it some "tooth" to adhere my paper. It's irridescent CS from the Recollections Precious Metals pack and I used one of the 5x7" Cuttlebug "Romance" folders to emboss. So how did I do it with minimal seams and the pattern going all the right way? First I cut the CS into 2 "L" shapes. The top "L" went into the folder and embossed the entire long vertical way, and to about an inch from the shorter horizontal end at the top. When I went to emboss the other "L", however, the pattern would have been upside down so (now don't faint or anything) I CUT THE FOLDER along the top. Yup, I cut that baby right in half along the fold to allow me to emboss from the top edge. No biggie, I'd done it before with my Swiss Dots, and the pattern sort of just clicks into place. You just have to make sure you don't lose half of it though, or you're screwed. LOL Anyway, this leaves about an inch of unembossed area at the end of both horizontal sections. I found one of the wider floral Cuttlebug borders that sort of coordinated with the pattern I'd already embossed to fill in the gap. Voila! All embossed with only 2 seam(conveniently covered with embellies)!

I really couldn't find an appropriate picture to put in the frame so I went to The Cutting Cafe and downloaded words from the truly elegant Valentine's Big Stuff. (In case you didn't notice from the previous post I LOVE these printable stamps because they work for so many occasions; wedding, anniversaries, home decor and of course, Valentine's Day). I chose the words I wanted, resized them to fit and printed them is a matching cocoa color using my Printmaster program. Then I punched out a small butterfly (gotta love Martha) to finish it off. Even if you planned to give the frame as a gift to be used with a picture, having something elegant in the center makes it so much more professional and it could be kept "as is" (like I intend to) to use as a home decor piece. Be sure to stop by The Cutting Cafe to see what's new. Regina is adding things almost DAILY, WooHoo!

I used one of my rapidly growing collection of MS punch around the page sets to do the 5" frame around the opening and cut the center out with my Nesties Labels One and popped it with dimensionals. Then I cut an ivory frame and adhered adhesive pearls. The small flowers are "wedding confetti" from M's some with punched centers, some with just pearls. The large butterfly is the Cuttlebug cut and emboss set. I colored one of the flowers, one of the centers and the butterfly shadow with my Copics. Finally, to finish it further, I used pearls around the entire perimeter and May Arts velvet rick rack along the edge. Be sure to stop by The Cuttlebug Spot to see the amazing creations by my DT sisters and be sure to leave a comment there to win a $20.00 gift certificate from Custom Crops.