Thought some of you might be interested in this memory box I made for my mom with several photos from our family’s cottage on the Chesapeake Bay.

I had NO idea how this was going to come together, so I just started by picking a small white 7 Gypsies shadowbox (stash).  I printed three copies of each photo because I knew I would mess up and it’s a good thing, especially the boat pic.  That took many tries because I had to cut four people out of the photo to make it just my mom & me 🙂 Getting the acetate positioned for the boat windshield was no picnic either!

The boat needed a background, so I took a piece of textured cardstock, masked off some clouds (MFT Cloud Trio & Simon Says Stamp Talk Bubbles) and lightly sponged some Distress ink over the background.  Since the photo didn’t show the entire boat, I needed something to cover up the bottom.  Head to my ScrapRack’s “Summer” section for some inspiration!  I pulled quite a few items that didn’t make the cut, but did find a use for the sand and waves border stickers, “Gone to the Beach” embellishment, the flip flops and a small container of teeny tiny seashells I bought my daughter on a field trip long ago.  I rescued it from a give-away pile when she was cleaning out her room.  Good thing, huh?

Before surgery…

…and after surgery!

The embellishment in the right opening lost more petals every time I touched it, so I replaced the flower with a tiny starfish and shell.  The middle section has an actual shell from our beach, one of maybe 20 I’ve saved all these years.  Instead of stamping the date and place, I ran the vellum through my printer and carefully placed the adhesive under the flip flops and shell.

For the left-hand section I took a second copy of the photo and cut just the inner tube & feet portion to place over the full picture, using foam tape for dimension.  The larger shells are also from our beach and the tiny one is from that rescued container 🙂

The last thing I did was print out the sentiment onto vellum and die-cut one of the same clouds from it.  I placed it over but slightly offset from the masked cloud on the top right.  I did a lot of agonizing over all the details of this project, but in the end both my mom & I loved it!

Hope you enjoy!!