Stampbord Little Boy in Copper Frame

I have made this frame with a Stampbord coaster in the middle as a gift for my dear friend, Petra. She has invited me to a cupcake tasting at her home this afternoon. Her baking is amazing and she grows the fruit she uses herself. I am very lucky to have a wonderful friend who bakes, crafts, is on the same design team as me, and lives only half an hour away! I hope she will like the frame which is not at all what I intended to make. It is one of the large papier mache frames from the Artistic Stamper and they are great value and you have the benefit of a wide frame to work with but also a deep recess, almost like having a shadow box. I had intended to decorate the frame with Stampbord inchies to co-ordinate with the design in the middle which is from two Art Journey plates, Writing and Inchies. My lovely friend, Alison, was very kind and ordered from Art Journey for the two of us as I am not brave enough to order in a foreign language in case there is some small print I haven't understood. In this instance, though, it does help if you know what Winkel means! Anyhow, when she came for the day and delivered my stamp set she also lent me her brand new Inchies set, how cool is that! I did make all the Inchies but they will be on a mirror which I will blog soon. I changed my mind because I liked the Viva Croco Copper background so much, I didn't want to cover it, so I just added a few pieces of the leaf stamp on Grungepaper, coloured with Pro Markers to pull it together with the central design.

For the coaster itself I coloured the Stampbord with Kaleidacolor shades from the Pastels set, and then stamped the little boy and the arithmetic from the Writing set, and the sentiment and the scrolls from the Inchies set, and then glazed it with clear embossing powder. I normally use Glossy Accents but it was such a big piece. As there was a slight gap between the coaster and the edge of the frame I wanted to fill this in some way and I tried out various colours of cord and braid which wasn't quite right, so I have used one of my fave products, Deko Ice glass glitter, from the Altered Element. I added a little extra on the frame to again try to pull the design elements together but I stopped after a few sprinkles as it was just buried against the copper background.

Sorry the photos are so dreadful but the glaze on the tile was causing a lot of glare, but I hope you get the general idea! I hope you like it, and I hope Petra will be able to find a little home for it. Off to have a bit of quiche now before I go out, as I need to have something savoury before I start on the cakes!!