Round Altered Jar: Beauty and the Beast

Today as I made my way to the craft area, I was distracted by a huge stack of discarded old story books sitting in a corner. As I began going through them, an idea popped into my head, why not use one of these for my altered jar project!  and that is exactly what I did.

You can call it an Altered Jar project or a Recycling project; your call :)


All you need for this project is:

• Box / Jar
• Picture
• Sentiment
• Some trim and ribbons
• Contrasting cardstock

I used an empty Body Butter jar, washed and dried. I removed the top label too made it nice and clean. And the story book I chose was Beauty and the Beast. I cut out the picture of Belle and the prince for my project.

Next came the sentiment; I didn't want a simple rectangle, so I traced out the desired tag shape making sure that it covers all the text, and nothing is cut off.

 Once that was done all I did was cut it out as accurately as possible.

This was the hard cover, thus extremely difficult to cut; but where there is a will, there is a way. The rough edges did not worry me much because I was going to distress them, and thus they would not be very obvious.

Next came the layering. Layering in my opinion is one of the simplest yet most beautiful technique. It adds a lot of definition to a project. I used, roughly 4 layers, not including the picture in this count. A close up of the layers below.

The Kraft paper board layers were used to give the project a strong base. So I went ahead and embossed them, just to add some body to the board.

 






Once embossed they were distressed with Vintage Photo for depth and color.














In the above picture, can you notice the difference between the two? the top piece is distressed while the bottom one isn't. Well, I distressed both for the project.

Next came the organizing; putting it all together without actually sticking it, just to see how it looks and tweak it before gluing it down. This is an essential step!

Adding some floral sprays; no project is complete without them, now is it! This looked pretty good me thought. With the top done, it was now time to focus on the sides.

I was pretty decided that ribbon and trim would look best so I went ahead and began gluing it down.

Starting with the ribbon and then layering it further till I liked what I saw:

Next I glued the Kraft base to the jar, and added beads to embellish it further. Also added a cute little bow for finishing.

Once this was done the project was fairly over, glued down the top as was arranged earlier and embellished it with beads and rhinestones. Below is what the finished product looked like..

From an empty useless Body Butter jar to a cherished Keepsake!

A Card for Every Season

Peace be with you!

It is Wonderful Wednesday and I have another of my creations to share with you. I call it the "Every Season" card, simply because of the sentiment used :D. So here is what it looks like:

Isn't it a beauty! and no, you cannot say it aint ;)

So this card is very very different from any of the cards that I have done so far, with respect to the colors and sentiments used. What I like best about this piece is that it can be used for any occassion and it can be given to anyone, young or old :)

I started off with a 4 x 5.75 inch folded white card stock and distressed the edges. The distressing was kept very light because I wanted the center piece to stand out. So, once distressed the based was layered with yellow cardstock to give it dimension.

Then I set this piece aside and began working on the center piece. Started with dry embossing the center piece, and then filling in the color with a light and dark tone of the same shade. For this card I have used "Vintage photo" and "Antique Linen" distress inks. You will start with the lighter shade.

When you get the desired effect, stamp the sentiment. Usually, one stamps before dry embossing, but in this case we do it the other way round. Its totally up to you how you want to do it, I just liked it better this way.

Once the base is ready, you can paste it on to the partially completed card or, you can add some fancy sentiments to it like I have done here.

I made this myself using ribbon, flowers, beads and a brad :) Love how it turned out. All you need to do is to make a 6 loop bow, secure it. Then take flowers of your choice and secure them on the bow as desired; and cover the center with a brand or button. The one I used here is embossed metal. I love it :). Beads at the base of the flowers are optional...i just added them in to give it a finishing touch.

So adhere the sentiment on the embossed card stock first and then adhere that to the base. And your beautiful card will be ready  :)

Happy crafting!
For further details email sabascraftland@gmail.com or visit Favors & More. You can also visit my card gallery.