The French Bake Shop

I bought a set of stamps last year that I thought would could be turned into a nice little bake shop. I finally came up with a design that I like.

Here is the French Bake Shop or La Patisserie.

I am sharing this project in Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge "Use Your Favorite Tool". My favorite tool?? Dies. I love dies. I love things that cut stuff out for me. The ironic thing about this project though is that the house itself is the simple gable house that I cut out by hand. Here I used dies to cut out the windows. Second favorite tool? Cardboard! Maybe it's not a tool, but it is the substrate that I use for almost all my projects. I LOVE CARDBOARD. As I said in a post a long time ago, I am a cardboard connoisseur.

Third favorite tool? Stamps. I am beginning to appreciate stamps and what you can do with them. There's no way I could have gotten the lovely bakery items in the windows without stamps. These stamps are designed by Claire Brennan of Gina K designs.

I painted the house with Ranger's Spun Sugar Distress paint and Walnut Distress paint for the doors and woodwork. The awning is Ranger's Picked Raspberry and Tumbled Glass. I stamped the bakery goodies on clear acetate with permanent black ink that I heat set gently so the acetate would not warp, but the permanent ink would actually dry and not smear. Then I painted the stamped side with more distress paints. The smooth backside of the acetate was glued to the front of the window. I did that to protect the paint and stamp outlines which are now on the inside of the building and can't be scratched.

What would I do differently next time? There's always something to do to improve every project. I would make curves on the roof to match the awning. That's not really that hard to do. The front awning itself would look better if it was cut out separately and gently curved and backed so that it stands proud of the front of the shop. I think the window on the door would look so nice if is was cut out too. The baked goods actually look better when they are backed with white. I might try stamping them on velum to see if that would make them show up better because they have such nice detail.

That's it for this week's Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge project. I am working on some flowers for the Wednesday challenge which is "Fantastic Florals".