Photo Holder with a Difference

Happy New Year to you all!  I hope you've made some new resolutions that you've managed to keep for more than a day!  I am going to try and be more organised and keep my scrap room tidy.  Unfortunately, I will need to get it tidy in the first place.  This may take some time...

By way of distraction, I wanted to create a photo holder, but do something different.  I have had these beautiful Seaside Retreat papers from  Websters Pages for a while, but as usual, they were too nice to cut up.  I took the plunge with some layouts and had some left over for this project.

I covered a chipboard box with Reader's Paradise and Underwater Oasis. The photo is held in place by two large shells, this means I'll be able to change the photo for another holiday (or if I get bored of looking at the kids!) (Only Joking).

I then layered elements from Reader's Paradise and various other papers including the reverse of Far and Away.  Layering some elements with foam tape helps add dimension not to mention being able to tuck in other ephemera here and there.

I curled some pearls around the bottom as well as adding seashells, glitter and rhinestones.

I also added stamped images from various sets for even more detail.

The top is decorated with seashells and tiny bottle (including a message), more glitter and rhinestones. 

The lighthouse was made from a template downloaded from the internet - not as hard as it looks!  The template can be found here. Incidentally, if you fancy building your own Chicago, apparantly you can from this site!

Thanks for popping in!