Look What I Made!

A baby's shadowbox to hang on the nursery wall! Yesterday I had the joy of attending my nieces baby shower.  She is due in just over a month and is having her second little boy.  Her husband is HUGE into motorcycles and so somehow I wanted to incorporate a motorcycle into the baby gift.  While we did purchase an adorable bassinet for them I wanted to try and make a personal gift after I found out that friends had taken this gift bag I made them and deconstructed it to frame and hang in their granddaughters room.  I had cut the squares, distressed the edges and embossed them to mimic a quilt and then added the little baby's name in rub on letters.   So, for my nieces my little baby boy I thought what about if I took the bags basic concept but modified it to work inside a shadow box.....hmmm.

I was able to get a nice white 12" by 12" shadow box from Target.  And since I wanted to incorporate motorcycles (not a real "baby - like" motif) and still have the hanging look appropriate for a nursery I decided to go with very soft, baby boy colors.  I then went to Hobby Lobby to look for a pre made motorcycle embellishment that I could work with.  I found the one below that also had a black motorcycle jacket, riding gloves and a black helmet in the package.  The gas tank was a glossy red....all very tough and manly looking and not too little boyish!  I bought the $3.99 package anyways and carefully peeled the gas tank off of the cycle body.  I then adhered some matching paper to the removed tank, carefully cut around it and then covered it with GA.  When dry, I then re-glued it to the body of the motorcycle.  I was going to to do the same with the the jacket, helmet and gloves and then I remembered this  Tim Holtz "gear" die that I got several years ago on clearance at a store that was going out of business.  I have never used it before!  So, I glued silver foil to regular card stock and then ran it thru the die machine and voila!...some homemade embellies!  I added buttons instead of the gear centers to "soften and babify" the hard metal look.  Then, I searched thru my stash, remembering that somewhere I had some hardware themed brads that might work for creating a "frame" for the focal image.  So, then I began to assemble the project....first a brown mat that was 12x12" followed by a blue 11x11" mat followed by an white, embossed 10x10" mat.  On top of the white I used my home made "quilt" and then used three Grande Spellbinder squares to draw the eye in more. For the personalised smallest square I first printed the baby's first and middle name on cardstock.  I then used a versamark pen to emboss the black before centering the Spellbinder square die and cutting.  Then it was a simple matter of of layering two more dies and putting the motorcycle on.  I messed up a bit on the quilt....it is not as even as I would like and for my next one I will have that better arranged!  I also think I needed to drop the largest gear down a bit but before I knew it it was stuck and I couldn't go back and rearrange it  with out ripping the underlying "quilt".    All in all I am very tickled with how this turned out!  It was my first attempt after the bag and I am actually really surprised at how easy and how QUICK this came together.  While the name "Vincent Norton" is somewhat unusual for a baby name it has alot of meaning for the parents as both Vincent and Norton are the names of vintage British motorcycles that the baby's father restores in his free time.  I am not sure the dad appreciates the polka dotted gas tank but oh well!   I had to make it match!  

 I am entering this into the Simon Says Stamp Anything Goes challenge as well as over at the Die Cut Divas Guys and Boys June Challenge.  And, actually, I just saw the Moxie Fab The Gift Challange and since this is a gift I made I decided to enter it over there too!  I hope that is okay!

Thank you so much for stopping by.  My life should be settling into a more liveable routine now that the BIG graduation party for my son is over  More on that in another post.  Now he just has finals and the actual ceremony but that is no work for his mom!

Be well,
Sheila