It's A Frame Up

A wall is never just a wall - it's a blank canvas for a veritable cornocopia of artistic creations. For me, it has to include something with photos. It's the little personal touches that makes a house a home.
So when an old picture in my hallway started looking tired and in desperate need of replacement, out came my creativity to create a whole new look for that patch of wall.
And this is what I came up with....

Now for the details. The three frames are from Kaisercraft Beyond the Page either 12 Photo Frame or 9 Photo Frame. The train is made up of 2 Beyond the Page Filmstrips and the train engine that I purchased off craftshapes.co.uk. I got the wheels for the "carriages" from them aswell.

I have a tendency to always use the latest photos on my projects so on this frame I decided to use early pictures of Eli. I painted the frame using orange Kaisercolour as the base - they are lush to use - the colours are so vibrant. When that dried I painted a thin layer of Mustard Seed Crackle Paint. As it's very thin the cracks are thin as well so they don't show up well on the photo, but you can still see the orange colour coming through. I sealed the paint with Mod Posge and once that was dry sprayed it with a smattering of glitter spray to give it some sparkle. The paper I used is of Kaisercraft Party Animal as are some of the embellishments.
The "Boys will be Boyz" title is a Dusty Attic chipboard and I UTEE'd it with several different colours of UTEE. I then added a bit of sparkle with different coloured stickles.
The "Uniquely You" sticker is from one of the My Minds Eye Lost & Found 2 collections (can't remember which).

These photos are of Eli's first haircut. It's a very big deal in Jewish tradition. A boy's first haircut is usually on his third birthday when they are considered "grown up" enough to have some level of understanding. However, because of Eli's developmental delays he was not considered ready to have his haircut until last year at age 6 and a half. We turned it into a HUGE celebration because it was a major milestone for us. These photos were taken on the day, some at home and some at school where they also made a very big celebration.
I painted the frame with brown Kaisercolour and then inked it a little with a gold ink pad. I sealed the paint with Mod Podge. The paper used is from Kaisercraft Chanteuse collection. The clock embellishment is Tim Holtz and the small frame embellishment is also Tim Holtz with a memory capusle (or whatever he calls them) and inside I put a lock of Eli's hair. The title is a Kaisercraft Wordlet, painted gold and then covered with a dimensional glue.

These photos were all taken during the Summer holidays and they depict Eli being Eli. The frame is painted again with Kaisercolour paint. Once this was dry I used Tim Holtz Stampers Anonymous dotted stamp and randomly stamped over it with Stazon dark blue ink. I highlighted a few areas with dark blue stickles for a bit of shimmer and once again sealed it all with Mod Podge. The title is a Kaisercraft Wordlet. This actually came all connected together but I separated the three words and embossed them with different coloured UTEE. The paper is from the Kaisercraft Little Toot collection. I bought the shell whilst on holiday. The flower at the bottom left hand corner is Prima as is the little heart and flower on the top right. The apple I found in a random shop that had a basket of random bits and pieces and they had these tiny fruits for 20p each so I bought all they had - which was only 8 pieces.

The train is my Purim Train (although I didn't actually put the title on there because it's sort of self explanatory - for me anyway). Purim is a Jewish holiday where the kids dress up so I put a put a picture of each of the 7 years that Eli's dressed up (flower, bellboy, schoolgirl, elf, duck, Uncle Sam, Scottish boy). I painted the two filmstrip frames using both Kaisercolour paint and Paint Dabbers. It was tricky painting in that arrow pattern but I had a ball doing it - yes I am a big kid!!! I then lined it underneath with a stripy paper (random one from my stash). I painted the wheels black, put a brad in the middle and stuck it one to my "carriages".
The engine is covered with a glittery Best Creations paper. The wheels are a fancy black velvety paper with holographic dots and the blue is a shimmery transparency - I bought both of these from JJD cards when I was at the Stamp and Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palance. The funnel and the buffer is self adhesive red felt contact paper and the brads on the wheels are really old - I've had them for ages. I connected the engine and the carriages with Tim Holtz Ideaology link chain.

I loved using the Kaisercraft goodies, but I had a big problem with it that it doesn't come with a string or anything on the back to hang it up. And I only thought of this once I had finished all the decoration so I couldn't stick anything into it because I didn't want to spoil it. After some very helpful advice on UK Scrappers I bought Command Strips for Picture Hanging from 3M Select. They are easy to use with no holes in the walls - no muss no fuss.

Phew - this turned out to be a really long post, almost as long as it took me to actually make the frames :D

Thanks for looking