'Tis the Season to be Encrusted!

Welcome to the Stampendous "Fran•tage Encrusted Jewel Hop"! All of us on the Stampendous Design Teams are sooo excited about this new technique...an accidental creative process discovered by our own Fran Seiford, Chief Artistic Officer at Stampendous! There is a quote that says, "There are no mistakes, just opportunities for embellishment!" How true is that? Today our super-creative-with-mistakes designers are excited to show you how you can deliberately create with gorgeous sloppiness. For more info on the process of Encrusting with the Fran•tage Essentials, check out the YouTube video HERE. Here's the list of our Encrusted Hoppers for today:

Stampendous Impressions' Blog

Cyndi Bundy

Trudee Sauer

Jennifer Dove

Pam Hornschu (ME!)

Wendy Price

Taylor Usry

Wendy Jordan

Lynn Mercurio

Krissy Fossmeyer

Rachel Sztonyk

Suzanne Czosek

As you hop from blog to blog, oohing and aahing over the Encrusted Jewel fabulousness, be sure to leave some love (and your contact email) for the designers, as well as on the Stampendous blog. Your comments are your insurance that you have an opportunity to win one of four blog candy goody boxes* of Stampendous Fran•tage Essentials for you to create your own Encrusted Jewel goodness:

 Aged Black Prize Package

 

Aged Silver Prize package

 Aged Gold Prize Package

 Shabby White Prize Package

For my post, I'm featuring this "Precious Gifts" Box, which was created for the Stampendous holiday 2011 catalog. Technically, I think it even works for this month's "Chipboard Challenge" since the box was created from chipboard. Lol. Hey, works for me.

Okay, so it may not be gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but the bottles hold some yummy scented bath products...bath oil, bubble bath, and bath salts. The box started out as paper mache before I started painting it, Fran•taging it, and gilding it. The border around the box was done with the Stampendous Antique Embossing technique. The "brass" name plaque on the front was simply a metallic gold cardstock die cut. "Precious Gifts" was embossed in the Aged Gold Fran•tage Elements before a bit more smudging and aging was added.

The inside lid of the box was also stamped and embossed using the Aged Gold. Love that! Slightly chunky, not too shiny, gorgeous texture. Yummm. The bottles were decorated by covering the tops of the cork lids with Versamark and Aged Gold. The outsides were spritzed with Tsukineko's Goosebumps...a wet and sticky almost gel-like substance that dries leaving bumpy droplets. Before drying you can sprinkle it with any of the Fran•tage Elements...in my case, I used the Gilded Mica Flakes. The tags were also painted and smudged before stamping with the each of the bottles from the Cling Three Gifts image. The bottles can be filled with recipes found on the internet, or pre-purchased items, or even items for the kitchen...flavored oils and vinegars, and fancy sea salts. To be truly creative now, you can't just get inky...you need to get Encrusted!

*US winners only, please.