At the beginning of June our daughter was married in Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, about 150 miles off the west coast of Morocco.  The volcanic landscape reminded me so much of images in the Waterfront Stamp Set from Stampin’ Up! that I came home determined to use the set to create some very special mementos.

Before we left, I sent hubby out onto the beach to collect some small pebbles of the lava rock and we added that to some shells, pearls, silk flowers and jute rope that our daughter had used to create the bouquets for herself and the bridesmaids.

We’ve now received the photographs from Danielle of Danielle Stack Photography and I can’t tell you how delighted we were with the 700+ images she sent.  They are simply amazing, capturing the mood of the day perfectly.

This morning I decided to start my memory keeping with one of my favourite images of our gorgeous daughter and handsome son-in-law taken on the beach, and create a very special photo frame for it.

I began with a simple 12″ x 12″ white square frame purchased in Dollarama that has a deep ledge in front of the glass and comes complete with a white mat cut for a 3-1/2″ x 5-1/2″ photo.

On the white mat I stamped the ‘mountain’ image from the Waterfront Stamp Set using Smoky Slate ink that I’d first ‘stamped-off’ onto some scrap paper.  Then I inked up the same image with Memento Tuxedo Black ink, stamped-off onto scrap paper, and then stamped it to overlap the first one.

Next I took the largest image in the set, inked that up with Balmy Blue ink and stamped it off.  Before stamping on the photo mat however I inked up the waves image from the High Tide Stamp Set with Balmy Blue ink and pressed the two stamps together (this is known as the kissing technique).  The waves image is much smaller than the water image so I needed to repeat the kissing technique twice more to be sure the whole of the larger image had been ‘kissed’.  Once that was done I stamped the larger image onto the photo mat below my mountains.  The result was two-tone water in the shape of the larger image.

All that was left was the palms trees, starting with the tree trunks inked up with Soft Suede ink, stamped off onto scrap paper and than stamped onto the mat beside my ‘water’.  The tops of the trees finished off the stamping with Granny Apple Green ink, stamped off and then added to the tree trunks.

With the stamping complete I added the photo to the photo mat and placed it into the frame so that I could decorate the outside to reflect the unusual bouquet (more of that another day).

Using my glue gun I started with a piece of the heavy jute rope that had been used to wrap around the bouquet handles.  Then I added some of the small lava pebbles collected by my husband from the beach in Lanzarote.  Shells from the bouquet were added next, followed a resin starfish and some small silk flowers.  Finally I filled in a couple of gaps with some large pearls.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am with this photo frame.  It captures the day perfectly and is a permanent reminder of the love and happiness witnessed by the 40 or so people privileged to be there.

FINAL REMINDER

One final reminder that the Buy 3 Get 1 offer on selected packs of Designer Series Paper, and the free set of 10 ink pads for new Demonstrators both end today.   Check out the promotions page on my Stampin’ Up! website if you’ve missed these offers and need more details.

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