Monday, January 02, 2012

Key To My Heart Mini Bottle

Today's Lesson From The Craft Room:  Go On An Afternoon Adventure With Some Friends
It all began at a friend's house for a birthday dinner.  Emily was celebrating her birthday and her parents invited us to join in the festivities.  When we arrived there were some adorable decorations set up!  One was a glittery blue star-like pinata-like "Happy Birthday" hanging thing (that's the best way I can describe it - next time I'll try to remember to take my camera with me :).  When it came time for Emily to open her gifts there were a few "serious" gifts and a few fun and fabulous items.  I asked her father where he found some of the items and he replied "At the Mercado dollar store!!!!"  Well, we didn't have to hear more since in the next moment Emily, her mom and I were discussing when we could get together for an afternoon adventure to the Mercado dollar store!!!!  Well, that day was last week and we had a blast!  I loved walking up and down the aisles looking at all of the fun and fabulous and tacky and cheap items!  Amidst it all I found a package of 4 of these very small glass bottles.  At the time I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but that didn't stop me!  I grabbed 2 packages of them (after all, each package was only $1) and I brought them home.  When I looked at them sitting on the craft table the idea of a "message in a bottle" came to me.  Since I had been working with transparencies/window sheets lately, it wasn't a far leap to combine the two ideas!  I love that the afternoon adventure created inspiration for today's project!  When was the last time you went on an afternoon adventure with some friends???
I began by stamping the key from Artistic Etchings onto window sheet using Jet Black Staz-On.  I then curled the window sheet to get it into the little bottle.  Next I created the faux metal heart.  I took a piece of chipboard (actually the white cardboard backing that comes with Stampin' Up!'s designer series paper) and I applied Versamark ink and then heat embossed with silver embossing powder.  I  added more embossing powder and heated again and repeated these steps until I had 4 layers of melted embossing powder.  On the last layer, as soon as I turned off the heat tool, I pressed the "love" stamp from Pennant Parade into the embossing powder and held it there for a few seconds before lifting it off.  Next I took my Heart to Heart punch and used the middle-sized heart to punch out the heart.  I then added a small eyelet using the crop-a-dile.  I attached the faux metal tag to the bottle using hemp twine.  Finally, I added an antique brad to the top of the cork with Crystal Effects (I cut off the prongs before adhering the brad down) and then placed a tiny adhesive pearl on the top of the brad (and added a dot of Crystal Effects to adhere it down so that it will stay in place)!  Here is a close up of the top of the bottle.  I hope you like it!!!!
ps  Happy 2012!!!!!!!  Wishing each and every one of you a wonderful and creative new year!!!!!!

1 comment:

Lorraine said...

Great project. I love, love, love $stores and find all sorts of fun things there, but my stuff seems to accumulate. My goal in 2012 is to keep that from happening and, following your lead, put it to use right away.