Whimsical Wednesday's ♥ "All About Love" ♥ Challenge...

Good morning my fellow crafty friends!

Today is the beginning of a new Whimsical Wednesday Challenge! Yay!

And, with Valentine's Day fast approaching, our challenge this week is very appropriately

♥ "All About Love!" ♥

So break out those Valentine-y papers, heart punches, gorgeous ribbon, and lovey-dovey sentiments and let's get on with some inspiration! ;)

For this weeks challenge, I came up with this gorgeous altered mailbox! :D

This mailbox is completely made from scratch out of chipboard! Not bad for my first time, if I do say so myself! ;) It's about 4" tall, 3" wide, and 4" deep - so altogether not to big and not to small. There's a matching itty bitty mini that goes inside, but that's another project to show you another day... ;) hehehe!

To construct the mailbox, I used part of the Tim Holtz Vintage Cabinet Card Die as I am absolutely HORRIBLE at creating curves and circles free-handed. Plus, I could cut the paper for matting the sides absolutely perfectly every time! Bonus! :D The rest of the mailbox was just putting the pieces together - easy peasy!

The paper collection I used was the gorgeously stunning "Romance Novel" by Prima. Can I just say I'm in LOVE??? :D This was my first time working with the papers and I don't think I can go back to anything else! No wonder what all the hubba-baloo was about when these papers first came out! Now I gotta order some more and hoard it like crazy! ;)

Anyways, here's a closer look at the sides...

This is one of the cut-outs from the A4 paper sized pad. Awesome vintage feel! It's popped up on a redish-pinkish circle I cut out from the paper line and then matted on a black doily I die-cutted from a Spellbinder's die and then spritzed with "Sugar-Fairy Plum" Glimmer Mist. I just LOVE the shimmery-ness! I added some I Am Roses flowers to a couple of the corners and a couple of glittery butterflies.

This side is pretty simple. All around the mailbox I used a black flowery swag Venice lace to add a more romantic feel.  I glittered up some black cardstock again and used another Spellbinder's die to cut out the awesome looking label. I cut out a circle from the paper line for the middle and added a sentiment from the Whimsical Design's "With Love" stamp set. I had to stamp it a couple of times to get the whole sentiment to fit in the circle, but it was worth the time since I absolutely ♥ butterflies! I added some more IAR flowers in the corner and glittery butterflies and voila! On the flag part of the mailbox, I used a heart punch and then pop dotted the small heart which is from the "With Love" stamp set too. Cute! :D

The front is basically following the same theme as the sides. I used another Spellbinder's labels die to frame another lovey-dovey sentiment from the "With Love" stamp set. I also made a little charm dangle to hang from the bow as a sort of handle to pull the front down. It's more decoration than anything though as the box is kept closed by some magnets hidden under the flowers...

Pretty neat, huh? :D I'll be putting up a video later when I get my voice back from my silly cold!

So... I hope you enjoyed and got some inspiration from this! Don't forget to go check out the other Design Team members' amazing projects over at the Whimiscal Designs blog and join us for this fun, fun challenge! More information about the details for this week's challenge and the prize you have a chance at winning if you enter will also be posted over there! :D Hope to see you there and I just can't wait to see what ya'll create!

Thanks for stopping by!

♥s & hugs,