12 Days of Christmas - Hand Made Presents, day 7

Make a shadowbox for your loved one. The base is a 7Gypsies display case and each cubicle is 4x6". I chose to crop and cut my pictures to showcase some paper and stamped images behind. Then I embellished the frame with punched out tags, hearts and ribbon. The letters for "LOVE" are done with "letter-it"-stamp set (Soft Suede on Very Vanilla card stock). I hand cut the letters and mounted them on Baja Breeze card stock and handcut them out again.

This particular one I actually gave to my husband for Valentine's Day, but I cannot risk on posting this years project. The recipient might see it here. You'll get to see it after the holidays :)

It doesn't matter where you go. It's who's beside you that matters!

I just love to create Shadow Boxes!

This one is a Valentine's Day gift for my dear husband. It has pictures from the time we were dating, our "official" engagement picture from 1889 :-) and pictures from our wedding.

I used Stampin'Up! papers (then current, now retired) and some non-SU! embellishments and the display tray is from 7Gypsies (they have the BEST display trays in the industry :-)

This second one is my most recent. I used a non-Stampin'Up! background paper, but you could easily create this with Stampin'Up! products (I just happened to have a leftover piece that fitted the style of the box perfectly.

If you'd want to make this embossed look yourself - you could take a Very Vanilla Card Stock, stamp it with Versa Mark and your choise of stamp (preferably a background stamp or floral/swirly stamp) and heat emboss it with Clear Embossing powder.

So that's what my background paper was  - then I just rubbed Crumb Cake Classic Ink on it with a sponge. The darker ink you choose, the more visible will your embossing become. I wanted to keep the tone fairly light to mach the clay hearts my mom had made for us.

the story behind the hearts is this:
My mom made us these hearts (Tom & Tanja) and we were supposed to tie them together with a lock and throw the key behind the church in Tonda (Tuscany), where we got married. Well.. unfortunately one of the hearts got broken before our wedding, so we scratched that plan. Eventually my mom made us new hearts, but since I thought they were too pretty, I just wanted to put them on a display.

So I tied them together with a chain and decorated the chain with a decorative lock and key.
I mounted the hearts and lock on top of Stampin'Up! Crumb Cake Scalloped Tulle Ribbon (available on the Holiday Catalogue UNTIL January 2nd 2013)

I mounted the black&white photo on Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake Card Stock and added the metal plaque, which says "It doesn't matter where you go. It's who's beside you that matters"