Merry Mermaid Shrine Gecko Galz

 Hello!

We at Gecko Galz challenge blog are all about Mermaids this month!! Get your craft on and join us over on the blog for a chance to win a $25.00 shopping spree at Gecko Galz!!!!

My first project made good use of pieces I had in my stash box. I love use upcycle items in my work and cast offs, as a matter of fact all pieces in my first project came from my cast off stash box. The base for my shrine is a wood stamp that is the date, day, time stamp, a piece of a dowel from another project, an altoid tin lid, from another projects, beads, and garlic netting! My image is from Gecko Galz of course!!

                                                                      First up my Mermaid Shrine

I painted and inked all the metal pieces with Tim Holtz Speckles Egg ink. Next wrap the dowel in jute, and drill a hole in the block to hold the dowel, I added a bit of glue to hold the the dowel in the hole. String beads on dowel if desired, set aside. For the lid part of the shrine, I cut out the image, lightly inked the edges with walnut ink. Cover the back of the image with pop dots or pop tape, adhere to the inside of the lid. Cut a piece of netting from your garlic bulb bag and adhere a little piece at a time to the back of the tin lid, taking care as you hot glue it on. * You my need to stretch to fit. I covered the back of the tin with a scrap for a finished look. Embellish till your hearts desire! I made a rosette using a Tim Holtz die, a piece of pearls on a string, and a flat back pearl.!!

My make to celebrate Mermaids again, is a set of mermaid magnets!  Upcycle Christmas magnets purchased for 25 cents each! after the season, covered with watercolor paper for a nice background for the images, that I pop dotted for extra dimension, with inked edges and added small beach worthy embellishments.

Thanks for taking a look

Robin 

Sea of Dreams, Double Stacked ATC Cube

 Hello Friends,

I can't believe it is almost the end of July! My family has been on vacation to the beach, and looking ahead for school to start in August. I will be going to the beach in December, to see me cousins in Florida! I am getting excited! 

When I think of the beach, it is sun, sand, shells, and of course mermaids, which was my inspiration for my projects for Gecko Galz this month.

I used the beautiful Mermaids Dreams Junk Journal Kit for both my projects! Yes there are more then enough images in this kit for 2 projects!

I began by painting my two, 2 inch blocks, while my paint was drying I cut all of the images out. I then cut mats for each image, and inked all edges of the images and the mats. I adhered the images to the mats and used a stencil and added walnut ink here and there on each image. After deciding placement on the cubes, I adhered an image on all 4 sides times 2 cubes. Next adhere the cubes together, I used a hot glue gun for this step. I then made my embellishments for the top cube. I recycled a small ribbon spool by adding cotton twine to it. I adhered a cog to the top of the spool, and carefully fussy cut the the Octopus frame out and added one of the sentiments from the kit. I hot glued a toothpick to the back of the frame and then hot glue the toothpick sign in the center of ribbon spool. I then filled a tiny bottle with sand, tied a little cotton twine to the neck of the bottle, and hot glued it in place. Added some small shells and silica beads for added texture. Save the little packs, that are stuck in products to keep them dry, that is where the silica beads come from!! Lastly I added 4 big beads for feet on my bottom cube.

                              My next project is always a fun card to make, a Waterfall Card,

                    I hope you enjoyed my work, thank you for stopping by, and be sure to visit again!

                                                                               Robin