LESSology Challenge #8 Guest Designer: Audrey Frelix

Hello, everyone!  I'm Audrey from Cute and Some and I'm delighted, and so excited, to be a guest designer today on Lessology today.  Thank you Lessology Team for having me!

My project is an altered frame and because I wanted it to represent what I'd like if I purchased a frame --very basic and not too ornate -- here's what I came up with:

This was such a fun, quick, and inexpensive project to put together!  In gathering my materials I found an old 5"x 7" pressboard frame around the house and along with the following scraps I began preparing my altered frame:

5" x 7" sheet of foam board (cut to size for the frame back)
1.50" x 4" piece of foam board (cut for the frame stand)
4" strip ribbon (frame stand hinge)
4.50" x 6" sheet of transparency (for the frame window)
Tulip Permanent Puffy Paint
Gesso

For the frame corners, I cut a strip of 1/2"x4" ArtEmboss Brass Metal (light weight) which I ran through a Cuttlebug embossing folder; then cut the metal lenthwise in half and evenly into fourths across the width.

Next I formed my clay flowers as outlined on the pictures below and baked according to the manufacturers instructions:

With everything assembled I was ready to start!  To give the frame some dimension, using the Tulip Puffy Paint to paint them on,  I miminicked branches and leaves onto the pressboard frame and then allowed it to dry.  Once the paint was dry, I arranged and glued on my flowers to my liking, and painted the entire frame twice with Gesso (letting each coat dry in between)

When the last coat of Gesso was dry, I created the brass corners by folding the metal strips around the corner edges on the front of the frame to the back; next I glued the transparency on the back to cover the window opening, and then glued on the frame back.  For the stand, I folded the strip of ribbon in half lengthwise and glued only one-half of the ribbon to the frame back aligning the bottom of the ribbon to the bottom of the frame.  The remaining half of the ribbon that was not glued down to the frame back is where the stand was glued by laying and gluing an edge (lengthwise)  along the top-side edge of the ribbon (being very careful not to glue down the ribbon to the frame on the side where the stand is attached); this allows the stand to lay flat when not in a standing position.  To finish the back of the frame, I covered it with kraft paper to hide any flaws and painted all the edges.  The pictures below illustrate these steps:

To complete the frame, I painted the flowers using Viva Inka-Gold colors; next,  to age and color the brass corners I used Cranberry color Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink, and finished with Crystal color Stickles to highlight the frame.

All that was left was to pop in the picture!!!

I hope you enjoyed my altered frame, I most certainly enjoyed doing it for you! Again, many thanks to Lessology (love you guys!) and I hope I'll be invited to come back again. Thanks too to all of  you for taking the time to stop by and joining me!!!

Isn't this a fabulous creation? Thank you for sharing Audrey! Please be sure to leave a comment for Audrey.

Hope you are inspired to play along with LESSology Challenge #8: Frame of Life! The deadline for all entries is Sunday January 8, 11.59pm EST. Please read the challenge rules to ensure your eligibility for our prizes.