No More Old Potting Shed

I painted a blue and tan background on the original photo to create a water & sand look.  I also sprayed some gold and red glitter mist to add some shine and dimension.  Next I inked the background French script paper in blue on the top part and some desert sand on the bottom third.  I adhered the background paper and waves to the original photo.  At first I started laying the sea life down and then I thought, I need to just glue them as I go since I wanted it to have a layered look without actually having any 3D elements.  So, I glued the letters and then just started building.  I love how this turned out.  It's so much fun.  I'm not sure if the photos do it justice, but I used my Stampin' Up markers to make bubbles and to embellish the sea life.  I just kept going and going and adding and adding until I felt it was just right.

Here are some close ups:

Do you remember how it started?  It went from this:

And then this:

To the final product. 

I sanded and then painted the frame a combination of two bottles of pink acrylic paint and then used some crackle finish with white to finish the look.  I really thought, I'd keep the pink frame, but because I didn't have a full coverage on the frame (I didn't have a whole lot of paint between the two bottles), it didn't look right.

Let's see...products used...I used an assortment of different paper from my stash.  I tried to use as many scraps as possible.  I used stickles for a little bling; my white pen to accent a lot; acrylic paint from my stash; gold and red glitter mist; and the cricut machine.

Cricut cartridges used:
Life's A Beach for pretty much everything
Doodlecharms (seahorses)

Total cost for this project = $0
Everything came from my stash!  Not bad for a customized baby gift.

This is going to my friend's daughter and son-in-law (Nia and Leo).