Ladybug Frame

Aside from making the flowerpot card, DeAlana had also asked if I could make a frame. She wanted to give it to her sister to give to a friend whose mom had passed away. The mom would call the daughter "ladybug" and so she wanted to incorporate that into a frame that the mom's picture could go into.

First, I bought an unfinished wood frame at Michaels and painted it white. I used acrylic paint since it dries pretty fast - in about 30 minutes or so. I did about 3 coats until I got the results I was aiming for. When I was done painted, I coated the frame with glossy spray so it could have a shine to it. In between drying times, I worked on the other details of the frame.

First, I created the ladybug. I used black and red cardstock for this. The body was punched from a 3/4" circle, and the body from a 1" circle, layered them, slightly overlapping. The wings were from my small oval punch. For the dots, I was about to punch a bunch of 1/4" circles, but that would get annoying to glue them on one at a time. I didn't want to just draw them on... I wanted some texture to the ladybug. So I took my Crop-A-Dile and used the eyelet setter part (without an eyelet) and just squeezed down in various "spots" (LOL!). I then colored the bumps to create the spots. I adhered it to the frame using dimensionals. The antenna are from a favorite, yet retired punch - Wrought Iron Corner. I took the punch guard out and punched out on scraped of black cardstock, then carefully trimmed around to create the curvy part of the antenna. In the end, the ladybug looked like this:


Next was the flower. I took a Bazzill white paper flower from my scrapbook stash, and I colored it with my Summer Sun and Pumpkin Pie markers. I had a hard time deciding how to decorate the middle though. I knew I wanted a clear rhinestone brad, but the brad by itself seemed to get lost in the large flower. I looked though my stash to find something, and decided on a flower Filigree brad. Behind the flower I used black and white stitched ribbon, and this is the result:


I went through my stamps to find a quote that would be suitable for the frame, and asked DeAlana which one she would like. She liked the one that says, "Life gives you many reasons to smile" but wanted to add more to it. Umm... okay. I could do the quote that she wanted, but I just didn't know how I would put it on the frame. I could write it, but sometimes I don't think my handwriting comes out very well, especially when I can't erase it if I mess up. After much debating, I decided to print the quote on vellum cardstock, emboss it right away so the ink wouldn't smear, and adhere the corners to the frame. Vellum is great, but you can't hide adhesive very well. So I punched out some mini hearts to cover up the corners. The quote says, "Life gives you many reasons to smile, but a mother's love is one of the greatest."


In the end, this is what the completed frame looks like:


I should make more of these for Mother's Day!