Give the Lord Glory

Hi friends! It's Kim, back with the Sweet 'n Sassy design team! WooHoo! I couldn't be happier! For those who don't know, our family moved to CT in December, 2015. At that time, due to the craziness of moving, I stepped down from the team. Well...we're now back in NH! Insane, moving twice in six months, but now that life has settled back down into a normal routine, I was anxious to get back to crafting. I'm so thankful that Korin has taken me back because the SNSS team is the BEST! Well, enough of the personal stuff, let's get to today's project!

I love hanging family photos in my house and my hallway contains a collage of them! While hanging the photos in our new home I had the thought that I'd like to break up the photos with small decorative items, such as some of those metal letters that are so popular now. While I found a few pieces at my local craft store, I needed one more item, but didn't really feel like going out to the store again so...I started looking through my bins of stuff and I found a tiny frame!

Here's how the frame started out...high gloss black. I covered the glass with masking tape and applied a few coats of heavy gesso. I didn't sand the frame first and I'll explain why shortly.

Here's the frame after gesso...

Since I'm currently obsessed with the color gray, I applied two coats of Dina Wakley Elephant paint. Add a little black or white to this paint to create a wide variety of gray paints...be still my heart! I set the frame aside and got to work with the inside image.

I stamped one of the flowers from the Flower Blocks 1 Stamp Set on a pre-cut piece of watercolor paper. I stamped the image using Antique Linen Distress Ink, which allowed me to create a line free image...looks like I water colored the flower by hand! I then used Distress Markers/Inks to do my water coloring. (Just scribble ink on a non-stick craft sheet and pick up the color with a wet brush)

Once the water coloring was completely dry, I used the Words of Life stamp set to create the sentiment, which was stamped over the flower using black archival ink. The image was then mounted to a piece of teal designer paper, after all what's better with gray than teal! And now I'll explain why I didn't sand down that glossy frame. Easy antiquing! I used a nail file to gently file some of the paint off of the frame's edges..love the final look! This was a great addition to my photo collage! Here's a look at both of the stamp sets that I used to create my project. 

Happy Crafting!

Words of Life I                        Flower Blocks 1