Frames and Flourishes

Oh my - it's been a busy weekend, but it finished off wonderfully Sunday afternoon with a frame making workshop with a group of very creative ladies.

 I was struggling a bit with this concept as I really didn't want to do totally Vintage in case some of the participants didn't like Vintage. Silly me! It seems everyone above the age of 30 loves Vintage. I say this because the 2 younger class participants created much more modern frames.

 

So this is what I had done as inspiration - I wasn't happy with it, and did have the chance to work on it a bit more during the workshop. I'll show you the final result later.

My primary aim at workshops is to inspire each person to create in their own unique style. I do this by giving guidelines to start and then say "If this is not talking to you, let's discuss your ideas and I'm sure we'll find the product from my vast array of Stampin' Up!® goodies to enable you to create what is forming in your imagination." I was sooooo impressed with the results today that I asked if I could take some photos of the ladies work.  And here is some of the work produced by Kim, Debby and Anne.

 I think there might have been a couple of last-minute Valentines gifts for husbands in this group!

 

So you can see I had very little influence  on these talented ladies today, but they have inspired me to try more frames (and to go with my heart rather than my head) 

There were lots of different techniques used on the frames, including: stamping, sponging, pastels, stampin' around wheel, Big Shot dies and embossing folders, crochet ribbon, satin ribbon and pearls - all available from Stampin' Up! Luckily I'm a bit of a craft hoarder, so I had the frames from years ago, and they came up really well with just a lick of white paint.

So I guess you might be wondering what my frame turned out like. 

I decided to ditch the stamped image from the centre, (I need to discover a bit more about that technique) and go with a photo of my favourite subject - Tyler, my grandson. Here are a couple of detail shots to show some of the intricate collage stamping that I used, plus the versatile On Board chipboard or should I say "chirpboard" , also from Stampin' Up!

I used a sponge dauber with Soft Suede, Marina's Mist and Bashful Blue to colour the chipboard, and I stamped the images in Soft Suede and Early Espresso directly onto the wood. You can just catch a glimpse of the "Sanded" background stamp too.

Layering the chipboard shapes gave me some more dimension and colour variation, and I stamped some words on selected shapes.

Still not happy with this one! Too many words and too much the same colour in the lower half.

Getting there! Did you notice the lower LHS has been repainted and re-stamped . I felt there were just too many words. Now the final result much more to my liking! I hope you enjoy it and will give this idea a try. Ideally, before too many more months have passed I'll have an entire wall of hand-crafted frames in my craft studio. And here is the final result.

We were off to the Wiggles concert with a huge bone for Wags the dog- 2 little boys (cousins) dressed up as their favourite "Wiggle", 2 mums and 2 grandmas - a perfect day!

I hope you'll try stamping on a frame too. It is lots of fun and there are so many styles and techniques that can be employed. 

Until next time,

Stay Crafty