It takes a crafty village ...

Hi, hi, hi.

You know the phrase 'It takes a village to raise a child'?

Well, while I may not have any children, I am acquiring something of a collection of zebras and, trust me, the same can be said about raising a Carousel Zebra ...

On my recent crafting weekend with friends, we were each given a blank shadow-box by Dusty Attic to decorate [but not before Hannah had taken a photo of me peeking through one ... obviously ...]:

The thing with going away to the cottage, and having to work on top-secret surprise projects is that you never seem to have the brought the thing you suddenly want to use.

Having brought my zebra stamp with me, I decided to create a bright little carousel-influenced box for him to live in, and considering how ornate the frame is, there was no way I was going to cover it with paper. So I needed to paint it.

Except I hadn't brought any paint ....

Which is where that 'village' comes in useful!

"Sid" I asked sweetly ... "Can I use your pink Dylusions paint please?".

Then, after two coats of lovely pink I wanted to add white paint to give it a more distressed / Mexican [which is not the same as a 'distressed Mexican'!] feel and pondered on how to get a true shabby coating on it.

Gail suggested splodging lip balm onto it, as a resist, then once the white had dried I could wipe it away revealing brightness beneath. Great idea ... except I hadn't taken any lip balm with me ...

"I think I've got one in my bag you can have" said Jan ... and a new use for a stick of Lipsyl was born!

The green bow and the embroidered flower came from Andrea who, after setting up her own ribbon shop [The Ribbon Girl], was happy to donate all her old ribbons to the baying mob those of us sharing the cottage. And the decorative Dew Drops around the edge came from Jean's shop.

Jean was also indirectly responsible for the zebra's carousel pole as she'd packed the skewers which were intended for roasting marshmallows by the open fire! But I put one to an alternative use! [Or at least I did after Jan loaned me a gold paint pen ... ]:

My final touch was to stamp the wording [using my own alphabet stamps!].

"What goes around" ... and subsequently 'comes around' is one of the philosophies I try to live by, it's the tagline and philosophy of my etsy shop The Carousel Zebra ...

... and if it's really true that your actions are somehow returned to you ... then my generous friends / stash-donors are definitely in line for something craftily karmic heading their way!

Thank you 'village' ... me and the zebra couldn't have done it without you!

Julie :-)