My Beach Theme Suitcase

That's BEACH, not the other nasty word. hee hee!

Now that we actually seem to be in full Spring mode here in northern Indiana, it has me thinking of the things I want to do this summer. Going to the beach might be one of those things!
 
But...beach season is quite a ways off, so in the meantime, if I want to feel a bit beachy, I decided to create this piece of decor.

I was inspired by seeing a vintage suitcase that had the word BEACH roughly painted it & an arrow. I don't even remember many of the details, because right away, my mind was dreaming up this design even before I had the suitcase.

This suitcase was purchased at a thrift shop and originally was all blue, like the trim color. You can imagine my excitement when I seen it sitting in the shop!

But there were set-backs. There's always set-backs.
 
First, I had issues with getting the design to cut for me on my Silhouette Cameo, until I eventually ruined the blade on the last attempt. I found a decent blade deal on Ebay and now have 1 with an additional 1 as a back up.  

New blade is in & I get the design to cut b-e-a-u-tifully, but because I used contact paper, it didn't want to stick to the surface of the suitcase at all. Ugh! Yes, I cleaned the surface of the suitcase well. There were scuff marks that had to be scrubbed off first.
  
So then I had to go over the back of each contact paper piece with some repositionable glue, and that helped, but apparently not enough. My first coat of creamy ivory paint seemed to do well. A false sense of relief came over me. But when I went over it with the 2nd coat, I could tell the contact paper was starting to lift and I knew the paint was seeping underneath.  Sure enough, every single image had major paint seepage. Crying.

This is the part that people don't want to pay you for. The part of your time it takes to make something sellable, but doesn't make you enough money for what you had to do to get it to that point. Follow me?
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I had to take wet Q-tips & go over each letter and image by hand and rub off the excess paint. It's not perfect and the edges aren't clean & smooth, but I think it gives it a rustic, beach worn look, yet looks pretty good, even from a short distance. It's just when you look at it real closely that you notice the quality.

AND, just to toot my own horn a little bit. I created this design all by myself. As much as I loved my Cricut Expression (and still do) I didn't have much creative freedom with it like I do on my new Cameo.


 
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