Hi everyone! My name is Christina and let me just say, “Wow!”  It’s my very first post as part of the Basically Bare team and talk about stage fright! First and foremost, I’d like to thank the academy..oh wait..wrong speech. Seriously, I’d like to thank Angela, Beth and the rest of the “Powers That Be” for giving me this awesome opportunity! I look forward to working with everyone and having some messy fun with a fantastic product and company.

Ok. Now that’s out of the way, ONWARD! Have you ever had a total “AHA!!!” moment and just had to pounce on it?  I did and today, I’m sharing a frame that I did up all cute and stuff for a friend of mine. It was sooooo hard not to keep this little bad boy for myself!

I just love how this turned out!  I picked up an inexpensive frame at a local store and just went to town.  I painted the frame using an acrylic paint by Delta Creative in “Red Iron Oxide”.  Once the paint dried, I inked the edges using my Tim Holtz distress ink pad in “Black Soot”.  I took the ink pad directly to the edges.  It’s really cool because there are some places where the ink bled into the fiber of the wood and gave it little hairline streaks along the edges.

While I let the ink dry, I cut into my Nikki Sivils “Noah” line.  I used “Noah’s Overalls” (isn’t that small grid pattern awesome??!) to frame where the photo will go.  The edges of this paper are also inked using Clearsnap Inc.’s Cat Eye ink pad in “Black”.  Once the ink dried, I just used my ATG to glue the paper onto the frame.  To keep it looking rustic, I also glued down a ball chain, also by Tim Holtz.

Now comes the fun part!  Embellishing!  Yay!

I knew what direction and “look” I wanted the frame to have.  I wanted it to be “boyish” but not something that only a little boy would have in his room.  I wanted something that was ageless.  Cue Basically Bare’s Bare Basics “Gears”!  Gears are always fun and ageless.

Here’s one of the things I love about Basically Bare chipboard and acrylic.  They look AWESOME naked!  The quality of the chipboard, and the color too, make them perfect without paints, inks, or whatever.

For the black gears and the stars, I simply ran them through my Cuttlebug, embossing them using folders by Tim Holtz and Provo Craft and called them done!  How easy and quick is that?!  For the large gear, I pulled off the top layer of paper to reveal the corrugated pattern underneath.  Finally, I fussy cut the scalloped circle from the papers and attached it using a screw head brad.

To add some dimension and highlighting, I used my ZIG Millennium journaling pin in “Pure Black” (size 05) and just outlined the star shape left by the embossing folder.  I even used it on the acrylic!

See?!  Who would want to give this frame away?!  Needless to say, my friend loved it and had a perfect picture of her son she planned on putting in it.  I may have to make another one to keep in my son’s room!