CCM 171 By Or Under The Sea

Good morning and Happy Monday. Did everyone enjoy the Olympic Games? I am so proud of our Great Britain team. We even outdid our performances from the home games in 2012. Congratulations to all the medallists, and better luck next time for the ‘near misses’.

Right over to our challenge at Crafty Cardmakers, which this time is being hosted by Bec, By or Under the Sea.

We are delighted to be sponsored for this challenge by Woodware Craft Collection with a fabulous £12 voucher for our winner.

Apologies this is picture heavy!

My Under the Sea is a bathroom cabinet that I purchased from my local recycling centre (or The Tip as we like to call it) for just £2. It started off as the most awful dark mahogany colour and boy did it take some sanding down to get it to the stage where I could even consider painting it. Ignore the ‘false’ mirror, but the reflection of the camera wasn’t exactly enhancing the pic so I photoshopped in a pretend mirror over the real one.

Unfortunately I forget to take a pic before I started work but this one is after about three hours of sanding!

I mixed some emulsion to get an aquatic type colour and having gessoed it first I painted with the new colour. It was still a little too bright though so I dry brushed in some white paint to tone it down a little.

This was actually finished in two stages, because my ME got really bad half way through and I pushed it to one side and didn’t get round to finishing it until I saw this challenge was due to be published so I cracked on at that point and finished it. However, when I started it, I only had a couple of underwater type stencils and a set of Magnolia dies which were ocean/underwater themed.

I textured pasted a mermaid and also bubbles through stencils. No idea where the mermaid stencil came from but the bubbles stencil is actually called Wave and is by Dutch Doobadoo. I also made my own embellishments from the Magnolia dies, and the tiny turtles which was a turtle border die, which I die cut several times and then layered up before painting.

As you can see from the pic below, I moved things around before I was happy with where they all were, and before finally sticking them down, I painted them with Maya Gold paint, and also painted the mermaid and dry brushed some maya gold onto the top of the bubbles to give them a bit more definition. It was at this point it got pushed to one side and forgotten.

Then the Heartfelt Under The Sea collection was released and I just knew I had to use it. I couldn’t face starting again, but hope that the addition of the Heartfelt pieces enhances it!

I took a couple of sheets from the paper pad and stuck them inside the cabinet, adding extra diecut fish to the background.

Before I stuck anything down, I placed various pieces to see if I liked them

But I decided there were too many, and also it needed bubbles to match the front. After I stuck it all down I sprinkled Glamour Dust over the fish, you can just see some of the twinkles in the pic below, but in real life it’s must more twinkly.

and the other side

Before I put it all back together I gave it several coats of Plasti-Kote satin transparent paint spray, because obviously going into a bathroom it will have to deal with a lot of steam and I wanted to make sure that all those lovely paper pieces didn’t just fall to pieces in the heat and steam. Word of warning, if you go down that route yourself……. do it outside, the fumes and smell nearly choked me and Poppy dog.

Finally a view inside with everything re-assembled and the shelf in place. Can you spot the non deliberate error? Yep, I forgot to measure where the shelf was going to be so I could hide the join in the two different sheets of paper! Ooops

As you can just see above. I stamped a gorgeous little Stampendous sentiment at the front of the cabinet. Near the sea We forget to count the days. I love this sentiment because it’s exactly how being near the sea makes me feel.

And here it is in more close up

Looking at it from the left, this is the view on entering my bathroom, well not quite. This is on top of my cooker at the moment, but after it has sat outside for a few days to get rid of the smell from hell, it’s the lefthand side you will see more of as you enter the bathroom.

Sadly it wasn’t until it was all re-assembled I realised that I should have tried to find a way to remove the mirror before sanding down as you can see, at this angle, the reflection of the dark mahogany areas I was unable to reach with the sander! I may have to see if I can sort that out over the coming days. I also had to die the knob as I forgot to get a new one and the original one was bright white and stuck out like a sore thumb.

And finally the view from the right. By the way, my Daughter informs me I should have cleaned the mirror before taking a photo! But it took me so long to get a pic from the side that didn’t show the mess reflected in it, that a couple of finger prints are neither here nor there!

I am entering this into:- (way too many! but this has taken me ages, so I am showing off!)

Alphabet Challenge - M For Mythical (the Mermaid)
Altered Eclectics - Aug: Anything Goes
Bastel-traum - #44 Mask/Stencil/Die Cutting
Classic Design Team Open Challenge - #05 Anything Goes
Crafting Musketeers - #40 Anything But a Card
Crafty Boots - Anything But a Card
Crafty Hazlenut’s Patt Paper - Aug: Anything Goes
Deep Ocean Challenge - #135 Seaside/Beach
Delicious Doodles - Aug: All Creatures Great and Small
Ellibelles Creative Moments - Critters and Creatures Linky Party 6
Fantasy Crafters - #2 Aug: Anything Fantasty Goes
Fantasy Stampers - #69 At The Beach
If You Gave A Crafter A Cookie - #50 Photo Inspiration
Little Red Wagon - #355 Surf’s Up
Love To Create - #17 Anything Mixed Media Goes
Make My Monday - #28 Photo Inspiration
Melonheadz Friendz - Use Diecuts and/or punches
Mixed Media World - #17 Summer/Sea/Nautical
Morgan’s Art World - #17 Anything But A Card
Not Just Cards - #35 Aug: Anything Goes
Pile It On - #115 Die Cut Embellishments
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - Go Fish
Sparkle N Sprinkle - Aug: Anything Goes with loose glitter ( I promise it is there, please read post!)
The Crafty Addicts - #22 Use Die Cuts
The House That Stamps Built WIW Photo Challenge - A1716
Worldwide Open Design Team Challenge - Aug: Anything Goes