April Flamingo Four

It's time for another Flamingo Four!  This month, three other designers and I worked with these products:

                   1) Pink Paislee 'Parisian Anthology' Corrugated Alphabet
                   2) Prima Raja Sequin
                   3) Maya Road Kraft Mini Calendar
                   4) Graphic 45 Metal Clothespin

This is my 7th time doing the Flamingo Four and I am definitely used to working with challenging items.  But my fellow designers and I agree that the metal clothespin in this month's Flamingo Four has been the most difficult item to date by far.  It is extremely heavy... much too heavy for most of the common uses of clothespins.  The fact that it has a word printed on it means you pretty much have to use it horizontally.  Quite a challenge!

I experimented with the clothespin.  If I put paper over it, could I do a rubbing and get a decent print of the engraved word?  Nope.  If I inked the clothespin and treated it like a stamp, would the word show?  Nope.  What would happen if I took the clothespin apart? Hmmm....

While I mulled over possibilities with the clothespin, I got right to work with the rest of the supplies.  I decided that I was going to use the packaging from the alphabet as the base of my project.  The clear window would be perfect for a picture, so I printed out one of my new niece, Allison and inserted it behind the window.  The box would be ideal for holding those little momentos that don't fit in a photo album, like her hospital bracelet.  

Next, I chose one of the round calendar shapes, then punched a circle from black cardstock.  I selected an A from the corrugated letters, covered it with lavender ink, and then brushed gold ink over the top.  I pulled out two of the sequins.

When I layered them all together, it looked like this.  

 

Here's the finished project:

 

Did you notice the clothespin?  I ended up dividing the two halves and gluing them toward the bottom of the box.  With the weight cut in half, the pieces weren't too heavy for glue to hold.  

To see what the other three designers made with these four items (and how they dealt with that crazy clothespin), head over to Flamingo Scraps.  It's always so fun to see how four people can use the same products with such different results!