Shabby Chic Frame

This is my project for the Simon Says Stamp and Show challenge this week. The challenge was to use a Tim Holtz technique so I had a browse through Lord T of H's munificent Compendium of Curiosities and settled on the Shabby Chic technique and made this:

This started off as a plain and simple (and very cheap!) frame from Ikea:

The first step was to paint it... and that took some doing as, once I unwrapped the cellophane from my 2-pack of frames, I found that they were made with a kind of plasticy-coated, glossy material that not even Gesso would stick to! So I hand to give the whole thing a quick sanding to key the surface enough for paint to stick to and then I gave it a coat of Gesso and then used Black Adirondack paint dabber all over it. Once the paint was dry I stamped flower and flourish designs (both TH stamps) here and there using Distress Embossing Ink and heat embossed with clear embossing powder. The next step was to add a layer of pink paint all over (again using Adirondack paint dabber) and, using a piece of damp kitchen roll, wipe off the paint over the embossed areas, leaving a nice shabby chic colour wash over the entire frame.

I then die-cut Tattered Florals and Elegant Flourishes from grungepaper. I painted the flowers with pink Crackle Paint and painted the flourishes with the black paint dabber and, once dry, rubbed a little Cotton Candy Stickles over them. These were glued onto the frame, using a hot glue gun, and buttons (from my "random bits and bobs" tub) and gemstones added to the centres of the flowers. I also painted pink Paint Dabber over a little Making Memories metal word accent and wiped the excess paint away, leaving the debossed wording filled with paint, and attached to the bottom of the frame. Et voila.

I couldn't think of a more appropriate picture to put in this pretty frame than one of my very pretty (IMO) DD1. :)