Springtime Frame

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Jennifer Muller, Fiskateer #1634 from Sacramento, CA says- I love using the new Embossing Plates from Fiskars, especially for home décor projects.  They really dress up plain cardstock and make your projects pop.

Difficulty rating

• Required supplies:
• Fiskars 8 piece embossing plate set (seasons)
• Fiskars craft drill
• Fiskars fingertip craft knife
• Heidi Grace (urban acres) paper
• Heidi Grace pink chipboard shapes
• Cloud 9 Brittany's Castle abc stickers
• other: foam adhesive, frame, glitter glue, liquid adhesive, paint, sandpaper

Instructions (Print version)

1. 1. Trace front of wooden frame onto back of solid color paper and cut out.  Position the solid color paper (right side down) onto texturing side of embossing plate (flowers) and, using stylus, trace around the outside of design.  After the design is traced, use the smaller end of the stylus to go over all the detail in the pattern (you may want to use a little masking tape to keep your paper from moving – I didn’t need to do this).
3. 2. After your solid paper has been texturing completely, use your liquid adhesive to adhere the paper to your wooden frame.  Once dry, lightly sand around the edges of the frame and then (very lightly) over the top of your textured pattern. 
5. 3. Using your solid color papers, choose a paper for your butterfly and bee (or whichever spring patterns you prefer).  Using the embossing side of the template, emboss a butterfly and bee, using the same technique as above.  Cut out images with craft knife and lightly sand.
7. 4. Using your craft knife, cut out stems from your floral embossed paper and adhere to wooden frame using liquid adhesive and a few foam dots to add dimension. Adhere spring embossed images to wooden frame with foam dots. 
9. 5. Using the alphabet stickers, create a message for your frame (“Spring Chick” was what I used).
11. 6. Using your craft drill, drill 6 holes in the top of the wooden frame (check which size bit you need with the paper lollipop sticks you are using).  Cut the lollipop sticks to various heights and then paint green. 
13. 7. Once sticks are dry, put them in the drilled holes and place a glitter sticker on the top of each stick.
15. 8. Use glitter glue to embellish various aspects of the project (I used it on the cardstock stickers, the stems and the antennas of the butterfly and bee).
17. 9. Put in your photo and enjoy!

* I preferred to use the stylus to the texturing tool.  I found that the stylus allowed me to create better detail on both the textured pattern and the embossed images.