Angels Landing: Baby Girl Frame and Card

The theme for this week at Angels Landing, is Scrapbook. One of my stamping friends just recently announced that she is a proud grandma of a little baby girl. So, of course, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity to make a baby gift - just because they are so much fun to make! I chose to create a frame so that my friend can show off pictures of her new granddaughter.

I used a 7x14 frame that I bought from Wal-mart. These frames come with a 2 picture matting panel that I just took out. I custom made my own matting by doing the following:

1) Cut a piece of cereal box to size 4 7/8 x 12 inches. I use cereal boxes all of the time for faux chipboard because they are sturdy but thin enough to cut through.

2) Cut a piece of patterned paper the same size as the cereal box/back piece. Adhere to cereal box with double stick tape or red sticky tape. Double stick tape does the trick if you don't want to mess with sticky tape.

3) As a guide, I placed my patterned paper panel flat on the table and laid the frame over it (minus the glass) and traced the opening on the patterned paper. This will help as a guide for image and frame placement.

3) Begin to measure how far apart you want the image and 2 cutout frames to be. At this point, you should choose the the size Nestie you want to use - I chose to use the classic square and scallop square nesties. Place the scallop piece where you want it to go and lightly mark with a pencil. I just marked the top scalloped edges as guidelines.

4) Cut out your scallop square and adhere with tape on matted piece. The pencil guidelines will look slightly larger than your piece, but you can get a general idea where to adhere the scallop squares onto the patterned paper panel.

5) Take your patterned paper panel and place in your die cutting machine (I use a Cuttlebug). Carefully place the regular square die on top of the scalloped square (making sure that the square does not move), place the C plate over the panel and cut out square (I used the following sandwich recipe: Plate A + Plate B + Patterned Paper Panel + Paper folded in Fourths + Plate C). It was a little bit of a tight fit, but it wasn't too tight to break the C Plate. When I was done, the square already left an embossed look on the scalloped square. NOTE: The die won't cut through all of the layers so you will have to use a craft knife to cut out the square completely.

6) Repeat step 5 for scallop square #2.

There you have it...custom matted panel with 2 frames. I think this is so much prettier than what came with the frame originally.

The elephant image is from Toys on Wheels and printed to size 3.53 x 3.94 inches. I printed the elephant image twice: once on cardstock and a second time on patterned paper for paper piecing (sponged a little Antique Linen distress ink on the patterned paper). I customized the frames with the "Baby Girl" sentiment from Toys on Wheels so not to leave the frames looking empty. The cardstock was cut down to 3x3 square, distressed with Antique Linen ink, and taped behind the back panel. This way, my friend, can choose to keep the frame as is or put pictures of her new granddaughter in it.

The wheels were a little tricky. It took me a couple of tries to get the right size so that it matched the size of the wheels that the elephant was standing on. The printed size of the wheels is 1.08 x 3.33 inches and it fit the frames and layout perfectly. The wheels were printed out on textured vanilla cardstock which made it look like authentic wooden wheels when colored with a prismacolor pencil blended in baby oil.

I wasn't satisfied yet so to make it look a little more girlie, I added a little pink bow on the elephant as well as finished it off with a green satin ribbon, prima flowers, button and string (which seem to be one of my favorite embellishment combos lately).

And the gift wouldn't be a gift without a matching card. A simple card made with nesties labels one. The elephant is popped up on dimensionals and topped off with a pink satin ribbon.

Thanks for coming by! Go on and check out the other DT gals creations!!! Have a great day!

Digital Stamps: Angels Landing (Toys on Wheels)
Patterned Paper: K& Company (Brenda Walton)
Cardstock: Unkown (Textured Vanilla)
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Antique Linen)
Die Cut: Spellbinders (Square Classic Nestabilities, Labels One)
Accessories: Offray (Satin Green, Pink), Prima Flowers, Button, Crochet Thread, String, Scotch Mounting Tape, Frame from Wal-mart size 7 x 14