For a recent event I held to introduce local Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators to some of the new products from the 2018/2019 Annual Catalogue I created a number of picture frames.  Well I didn’t actually create the frames but I did use Stampin’ Up! products to decorate them.

One frame that was well received, living as we do not far from the sea, was this one created using the Sea of Textures Stamp Set and coordinating Under the Sea Framelits Dies.

I started by using Tranquil Tide ink to stamp the long weed image at various heights directly onto the base of this raw wooden frame.

Then I stamped the octopus image onto some Whisper White Card using Night of Navy Ink and cut it out with the coordinating die using my Big Shot and Magnetic Platform.

Also included in the Under the Sea Framelits are some dies that don’t coordinate with stamp images and I used my Big Shot and Magnetic Platform to cut out the net from Mint Macaron Card and two of the small fancy coral shape from Calypso Coral Card (a little obvious, I know).

I scrunched the net piece up in to a tight ball in my hand and then loosened it up.  before tapping parts of the net onto the surface of a Mint Macaron Ink Pad to give it a little extra dimension.

I used Multipurpose Liquid Glue (Tombow) to attach the net and one of the coral pieces in the bottom left corner of the frame, then added the second coral piece and the octopus over the top with Stampin’ Dimensionals.

I had one last bit of die cutting to do and that was my sand dollars.  The Under the Sea Framelits have two different sizes and I cut three of each from Very Vanilla Card.  I wanted my sand dollars to be really substantial and so used liquid glue to layer the three die-cut pieces on top of each other.

I used a piece of Stampin’ Sponge to add a light coat of Crumb Cake ink over the surface of the sand dollars and around the edges before using liquid glue to fix the smaller one directly onto the top right corner of the frame and adding the larger one overlapping it with a Stampin’ Dimensional.

I finished the frame using a Balmy Blue piece from the Tranquil Textures Designer Series Paper (DSP) Pack as a background while I decide what photo I should put inside.

I had such fun making this picture frame and I had to laugh when some Demonstrators were right up close to it and didn’t realise the sand dollars were made from simple card and ink.   I have a feeling I’ll be using this stamp set and coordinating Framelits for a long time to come.