Giveaway Time and Alter It

It's time for a super fab challenge over at Sugar Sweet Paper Treats and you won't believe the prize!  It's Deborah's turn to offer up the challenge and she is giving away the exclusive French Manor Cartridge for the Cricut.  All you need to do is alter something, anything.  My project was to alter this picture frame.  I have had this idea for a homemade message board brewign in my mind for a few months now, but I just couldn't figure out how to do it and my hubby did not want to help me cut some wood I was going to use.  So then I remembered the stack of frames that I shoved under my bed when we repainted 3 years ago.  I sanded this one down and then applied three coats of acrylic paint.  Then I cut down a sheet of chipboard from the back of a paper stack to 8x10 inches to fit inside the frame.  I used hot glue to cover it with fabric and then started criss-crossing some ribbon.  The ribbon is only glued to the back, and not glued at all to the front.  This will allow me to slkip things in.  Then I used wire cutters to nip the prongs off of some glittery brads and hot glued those to the ribbon to finish it off. 

Then all I needed to do was embellish.  I made this flower out of some scraps of white cardstock by tearing the paper into strips and then just rolling, twisting and hot gluing until it reached the desired size.  I then spritzed this with Smooch Vanilla apray, added some accents with Smooch Moonlight paint and then added a touch of Stardust Stickles(especially to cover up the glue that was showing).  The leaves were cut with my Cricut and the accent Essentials cartridge with papers from my scrap stash.  The bottom layer was inked with Memento Dew Drop Ink in New Sprout and then after adding the second layer I doodled and inked the edges with Cat's Eye Dark Brown.  Then I covered the leaves with Crackle Effects by Ranger.  The flourish was made on my gypsy by taking a simple swirl and copying and flipping and welding until I liked it. I am really quite happy with my end result.

So for your chance to win a French Manor cartridge(not for sale anywhere-exclusive to Cricut Circle members) just head over to Sugar Sweet Paper Treats and link up your altered project before the end of the month.  Speaking of giveaways, ScrapTiffany has a great one going on now too.  Head on over to the blog and scroll down to the January 3rd post for all the details(it's a bit long winded, but if you can handle all my rambling then you can handle Tiffany's winkwink)