What I did at the Crop by Julia Dunnit

See, Mary Anne, under orders from oh, everyone that comes to Ludgershall Crop, had brought some of her mini albums, albums and a handful of projects for us all to look at. Man, they were gorgeous. She recognised the look of unspoken and frankly unashamed begging in my eyes and gracefully gave in. She offered us a class. So at this month's Crop, after lunch and before tea, she showed us with skill, patience and a lot of attention re-focussing, how to make this picture frame. The idea actually was to make two and join them with a hinge for folding together. Lovely. Except my first was erm...not very acceptable. It's in the re-do it pile. I managed to cut the frame aperture out perfectly straight and then discover it's a bit too left of centre. Still, this one's a good 'un, and a great way to use my lovely Fimo roses that I've been wittering on about for about 3 weeks! I got the mould from Crafty Notions' Sarah and all I did to them was wipe a teeny amount of white acrylic paint across them to highlight the relief a bit. Pearl-Ex would have been good too - but I wanted to have something finished before I had to come home!

I'm still messing with the diamante blibs, I thought the trailing look was OK, but am now going to dig out the old swirls template and see if I can't go completely overboard. Now, Mary Anne said that in order to get the most out of the work she'd put into the photographic step by step instructions, she'd offer them on her blog as a pdf file. I've been over there and guess what - pdf, and a video....wow. Now y'all - not only is this incredibly generous, her samples were amazingly gorgeously worth a trip to her blog anyway for a looksee and also - this frame is made from foam core board - which makes it incredibly light - which makes it a fab present for your far-aways. All round brilliance, Mary Anne. Nobody at the Crop is prepared to follow that!