Altered: Beautiful Tins

All of us have used lots of moisturizes this winter, and surely there are some empty tins, and bottles lying around waiting to meet the bin. I wanted to use the empty Nivea Creme tins to store some teeny tiny craft elements and so I decided to give them a new look.

I started off by washing the tins thoroughly, leaving them squeaky clean and ready for the makeover. Once dry, I spray painted them Coca Brown and let the paint dry.

TIP: Spray paint the base and lid separately, this will ensure complete coverage. Do not touch the box until it is completely dry; If you do, the paint will just wipe off.

Next I chose some of my favorite stencils, and placed them on the box, in a manner that the design would cover the raised text.

I am using the Floral stencil from Tim Holtz's layering stencils collection - 2017. Once happy with the position, I stenciled modeling paste onto the box.

Since this is tin, and the base isn't flat, the stencil slips when applying the paste. You can tape it down if you like, but I just held it down with my hand as I wasn't looking for a perfect print.

While the paste was drying, I activated Bashful Blue, Chiffon Pink and Sea Glass Twinkling H2O's for coloring the stenciled design.

Colored parts of the design, and left it to dry.

I altered three tins, using three different designs, and each looks beautiful.

You can layer the inside of the base with felt -- if you like.

Linking it to Altered Eclectics monthly challenge. 

Happy Crafting!

 

Project Babushka

I take delight in experimenting, working with new mediums, and trying out new things (and by new things I mean, things that I have not worked with before). It is for this reason that I am blessed with the opportunity of working on a whole bunch of unusual projects, alhumdolillah. Today, I will be sharing one such project, Project Babushka!

This project rolled out sometime in September 2016, and as much as I wanted to make this part of my "year in review" post, I couldn't -- because I never got around to writing one, ha!

So the requirement was basically to customise babushka dolls, as giveaways for a surprise party being hosted in Russia. Sounds pretty simple, -- but its not that simple.

The first step was to find the plain dolls; my first preference was to get them from somewhere within the city/country. But that didn't work out, so they had to be imported. When I opened the carton, I realized that I had to do a lot more than I had expected.

Step 2 involved sanding each and every doll individually. This was THE most time consuming, yet integral, step of the project as this was the only way to make the top fit the base, perfectly.

Next up was the process of customization. I was provided high resolution pictures, which I had to edit, -- adding / removing people, superimposition the bodies etc. This was fun, and I was impressed with my Photoshop skills! lol.  Each nested doll was meant to have 1 custom picture, except for the largest and smallest, which had 2 pictures each.

*the faces have been blurred for privacy- incase you were wondering*

With the images ready and printed it was time to layer them onto the dolls - decoupage basically.
This was a bit tricky because of the babushka doll's shape, and also because these were nested, so the image had to split in two, such that the joint isn't very visible.

The last step was to seal them with varnish.


And that was project Babushka, handmade in Pakistan!

The Title is Story

I am in love with Blue Fern Studios - Courtship Lane paper collection! Here is the cover of a recently completed project. The short chipboard title 'Story' is from Blue Fern Studios; it has been heat embossed and then glittered.
The frame is a glittered diecut, and the street lamp has been fussy cut.
Our November Challenge

Announcement: I will be conducting a workshop, in Jan and Feb inshallah, on how to make this complete album / scrapbook / memory book -- The registration link will be posted in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned.

Happy Crafting!

Paris Themed Scrapbook

If you have been following me on Instagram, you must have seen a preview of the Paris themed scrapbook that I completed, not so long ago. Well, I have finally managed to take out time to share the details with you, hope you enjoy reading about it just as much as I enjoyed making it. This scrapbook was made for a lady, to document her first ever trip to her most favorite place in the whole wide world; Paris. This was going to be a very special trip, and so I wanted to make this scrapbook very special too.

 I heat embossed the chipboard elements using the absolutely gorgeous embossing powders by Blue Fern Studios. These embossing powders have a beautiful glittery finish, which adds a whole new dimension to the project.

I added some charms to the binding ring, along with organza and satin ribbons.
The pages weren't the regular ones, but with flip pockets. Below is a picture of the first page.

You can see that it opens to a regular page, but when you flip over the Eiffel tower, there is a pocket and a tag, and when you flip that again, there are two more pockets with removable mats. So most of the pages flip open to reveal more photomats / journalling space or pockets.

The crown is chipboard, embossed and decorated with tiny beads. 

This trellis style pocket is my favorite <3

 Photomats with journalling space in the back.

I love these chipboard frames by Wycinanka; the bows on it are so cute. I simply colored the bows, outlined the frames, and then heat embossed them to seal the color. There is an opening on top of each frame which lets you slip the pictures in.

Added a lace dress with ribbon and a rose, to the diecut dress form.

Used chipboard vines, along with paper and ribbon flowers for this pocket. Love how bright and colorful it turned out.

 

 This is another flip over page. Created a pocket for the small tag by cutting out the roses from the pattern paper.

 I also fussy cut the vines in the above pocket; to add interest and detail.

 

 

I had so much fun making this one; I drew out a deep oval, and then cut it out leaving the roses and leaves in place. Added die cut lace to make it look super delicate.

 

 This is a removable frame; this too was fussy cut, and layered so that its sturdy.

On the last page I added lots of elements, which I fussy cut from the patterned paper.
For the box (rigid heavy board box), I used the same patterned paper as the cover, and added some texture to it.

 Added lots of embossed elements here, along with lace, ribbon, and diecuts.

The chipboard frame has an opening on the top, so you can add a picture to it.
And that's about it...
Thanks for stopping by,
Happy Crafting,

A Shelf for the Ink Pads - DIY

If you have been paper crafting for sometime now, I am sure you have a sizable collection of inks, half of which you've forgotten about, because they aren't 'visible' all the time. Due to limited space, and sheer lack of organization, I had similar issues and so, I decided to make a shelf for these colorful little things.

I started off with this very sturdy gift box, which I had received from Pepsi as part of their Lighting Up Lives Campaign (its a great campaign). I choose to work with this one because the lid and the base have the same depth, making it easier to stack them on their sides. 

So step one was to basically remove the lid from the base, and add horizontal layers to form the shelves. For the layers I've used light board (left over from a previous project,) which has a thickness of 1/8". Since the Inks pads are not heavy, this board served the purpose well.

Incase you are wondering about the measurements, at this stage, I simply placed the box over the board and traced out the required size. The spacing between each shelf, however was approximately 1".

Step two was securing the shelves, in place and adding vertical dividers. I cut out comb style dividers, as I felt they would not only be very sturdy but also super easy to adhere. (You will need to add 0.5 inches slits in the shelves too, this will allow the divider and shelf to lock together)

Once cut, I simply pushed these into the existing layers and secured it all together, keeping a distance of 3.5" and 4.25" as shown below. 3.5" is good for distress ink pads, 4.25" works for staz on, archival etc.

I repeated the same steps for the lid, and then secured it on top of the base. This gave me shelving space to 24 ink pads <3.

Next I simply painted the base, stamped over it, and added chipboard Alphas. Once dry, it was home to some of the ink pads and their accessories!

I am, alhumdolillah, so happy with this. It has made life so much easier. It took me around 5 hours to make it, super easy and so useful. If you don't want to buy one, then try making one for yourself too.
Take care, and happy crafting

Eid Mubarak!

Wishing all of you a blessed and happy Eid!
~Taqabballahu minna wa minkum~
~May Allah accept it from you and us~

This Eid, I had the pleasure of making Eid cards in the colors of the MSA logo; navy blue and white. For the center focus I used the Altenew Eid Greetings stamp set, and water colored the image.

And here is how I #watercolored the #altenewllc #stamped image using #fabercastell #colorpencils . #watercolourpencils #keepingitsimple #twocolors #blending #easycoloring #stressreliever

A video posted by Saba Musharrif (@favorsmore) on Sep 7, 2016 at 2:48pm PDT

The sentiment was heat embossed in Silver, and my little nephew Zubayr dry embossed the white base, and layered it onto textured blue card.

Oh we had lots of cards to make, and I would not have been able to complete these in time, without the super awesome Zubayr <3. By the way, the video above... that too was recorded by my little angel. =D
 

And this is what the finished cards looked like.

Sending lots of love and prayers your way, this Eid.
Happy Crafting!