Let's Gloss over it!

   Because I love gloss. When I was younger, I preferred lipstick.Now...it's almost always lip gloss. My favorite splurge being a small tub of Christian Dior gloss that just makes my lips so soft and shiny. But wait...this blog isn't about beauty tips. It's about scrapbook pages. So what does gloss have to do with anything? Well, It's about a bottle of Glossy Accents to be exact. And I have discovered that I love it about as much as my lip gloss.

   Initially, I had wanted a bottle of Diamond Glaze. Unfortunately, the Little Scrapbook store closest to me does not carry it...but they do carry Glossy accents. Same difference, or so I am told. I still want to try Diamond Glaze, if only to compare. For now though, I am liking what I can create with the Glossy Accents.

   So, what did I make? Well, I wanted to do something special for DH's birthday photo. I decided to make a frame for the photo that said Happy Birthday...and then use the glossy accents to suspend some sequins into the letters. It was a lot of work, but I do like what I made. AND... I was able to submit it for the Sketchy Thursday's 6-03 challenge:

http://sketchythursdays.blogspot.com/2010/06/603-sketch-challenge.html

  So, Now you are asking yourself, how did I make this frame? Well, If life were easy, I'd have a Big Cricut. As it stands, I only have a baby bug. So, I couldn't just make the frame fit into the cutting mat. Honestly, you could make this type of frame even without a cricut or die cut machine. You will need to have the following:

-Patience

-an exacto knife or other craft knife

-letters( these can be chipboard letters, stencils, or print letters using your word processor and cut them out to make your own stencil)

-Glossy accents or Diamond Glaze

You can see in this photo the white CS letter I traced.

1. Trace around the edge of the photo that you want to frame onto a piece of Cardstock.

2.Take  your letters(or numbers or even shapes for that matter), trace them around the edge of the rectangle( in this case 4x6) as desired.

3. use your craft knife to fussycut the frame out.

4. apply the glossy accents or Diamond glaze to the letters. Before I did so, I put pieces of cut up sequins onto the letters. On some letters, I painted with smooch ink so it would have a slight shimmery effect under the clear glaze. You could also use confetti, glitter, small beads, sand...use your creativity to figure out what you want to add to your creation.

5. let dry and then adhere photo.

Here is a photo at an angle so that you can see the raised effect of the glaze. The Glossy Accents are also a great way to turn old flat stickers into epoxy style stickers.