Representation of made with love!

With all of the excitement this past few days with the giveaway and finishing some orders things have been rather busy and crazy here at Made with love HQ.

So I felt like taking the night off to create something for fun. I always see really nice pics other businesses post when they have sent mail to let their customers know to start stalking their posties. So I decided I wanted to make something 3D and like a diorama to use as my picture.

Throughout my schooling years (1996-2008) I always LOVED it when my teachers would give us a project to do and it was craft related. Remember this was before craft or being crafty and handmade was cool. It was considered lame by many (NOT ME!).. so I spent many a year what is known as a closet crafter... Any chance I could to make something I did and I always loved it. Would enter in craft competitions at my local show, I would spend months designing and creating something and without being too cocky I knew I would have a fair chance at winning.. And the same came to school projects. I always strived to be the best and would spend hours doing assignments and projects. Now I look back all I seemed to do was study. No wonder I wasn't a social butterfly. But I had dreams of what I wanted to become and I knew school wasn't just for socialising- I wanted to make the most of it.

One of my more memorable projects I created was a diorama or representation of the themes represented from a young Australian novel called 48 shades of brown. We were given the project to do over 10 weeks and I always started my projects the day that I got them. I remember planning my diorama straight away I wanted it to be big, and that was an understatement! I got the largest canvas I could find and immediately started scrounging around for items I could recycle. I found some beer carton boxes and other materials and started to create the house as described in the novel, I even made a veranda and internal stair case out of match sticks. I made little wooden tables and chairs and furniture inside the house. I  had so much fun. I got in so much trouble for my room being a mess but I was having fun! I went on to then represent many other aspects of the novel. I found the cutest little porcelain dolls house teaset from a discount bargain store. I never took photo's of the diorama but I had fun!

Who knew  3 years later I would turn my love for craft and paper into a business venture! And I have loved every minute of it! Starting Made with love was one of the best things I have done and cannot express how appreciative I am of the support to let me do what I love to do.

Ooops I am rambling, sorry for that.. now back to the diorama I made last night. I wanted to create a cute scene that represented all things made with love whether it be a home made with love; children are made from making love; creationists believe the world and everything around us was made with love. So I wanted to incorporate many different meanings into something that showed that made with love mail is on its way. I didnt really know how to incorporate the mail side into the diorama (was originally thinking having a postie carrying a parcel or envelope but got carried away in creating all things made with love).

I started with re using a box and cut the flaps off of each side. I then found off cuts and scraps of blue and green cardstock and began gluing pieces to form the sky and the grass.

I then started creating the trees and wanted to recreate a gum tree. Using my crumb cake card stock from stampin up! along with the use of my sizzix big shot and a tree branch metal die from Impression obsession dies I began to cut out two pieces of branches. I also had 100 pine tree leaves I had punched (using my martha stewart punch back at christmas time) that I had not made use of yet, so I decided to use these for the gum tree leaves. I started assembling the tree and leaves by getting two punched pieces and attaching to a stampin up! sticky dot in the shape of a 'v' and started layering the branches until it looked full! I created two of these.

I then attached the branches to the inside of the box to create the first layer of background. I then cut out a single brown brach die 'woodland branch' from memory box dies. I bent the first part of the branch and glued this part to the wall to create a 90' angle and positioned the branch so it looked attached to the tree in the background. Using 2 kids on a swing die cut I attached to the branch. I also added a birds house to the tree to make it feel more homely.

Here is a close up of the branch and swing to show the dimension and 3D effect.

I started working on a house out of scrap pieces and  made a stand for the back of the house so it became propped up (the weight of it kept falling back). Then I added some windows, a  chimney, some clouds and smoke, a bow on the door, some flowers in the flower box and garden. I thought the 'live laugh love' cut out was appropriate for creating a house made with love. Similar signs were always present in my house growing up.

I thought it was cute to add a little puppy watching the kids play as well as two scooters just laying around on the lawn. I lost count of the amount of times my siblings and I would be told "don' leave your bikes laying on the ground.. don't leave your scooted laying on the ground" So I thought it was appropriate. I also die cut the 'Made With Love' letters to nicely sum it all up!

So here it is my representation of all things made with love to share with you all!

Thank you for reading and hope you too like my diorama. My husband loved it!

With love,
Talya xx