I have finally got around to decorating an mdf jewellery box a friend gave me some years ago. It has been sitting in a box waiting for some inspiration and when I saw this new Dimensional Dahlia collection by Opulence by Design, it gave me the idea to use some of these beautiful papers as rice papers to decorate it.
My Epson Ecotank is great and economical for digital printing but a bit more sensitive when it comes to tissue paper/rice paper.
Nevertheless, it is happy to take printable sumi paper, which is what I had in my craft stash to print on. I attached the Sumi paper with a tape pen to a piece of A4 copier paper to feed it through my printer rather than using a removable adhesive spray, leaving a small border of copier paper adhesive free for my printer to pull it through.
The Sumi paper has a textured thread running through it which is lovely for background papers and has a great woven feel to it too.
In order to make sure the colours did not bleed, I just left them to dry out for a few days. I would also recommend using a good quality decoupage glue. I used Mod Podge as that was what I had at the time but I would use another medium next time out of preference.I painted all the areas that needed painting first, using a Sparkle Reinker pearlescent dye based ink in Kiwi by The Dreamees. Once Dry, I gave it a coating of Matte Mod Podge to seal it. For a more shabby look, I lightly sanded all the edges of the box.
I then started to add my sumi/rice paper to the edges of my box, being careful not to add too much Mod Podge to start off with as once dry, I would go over the whole box to completely seal it.
Along the lid of the box, I've added metallic green microbeads, they just mixed in really well with this project.
On the lid of the box, I chose this design because I think these flowers are so beautiful and have added the single blooms to sit on top as embellishments, alongside the crystal berries but I needed to give my flowers some more texture to protect them.
I still printed on 120gsm Navigator paper) I first embossed the leaves with clear embossing powder, happy with how that looked, I added some iridescent embossing glitter to the veins of the petals and then covered the flowers with a layer of Mod Podge to give them a light vinyl feel to them that I could still mould them in my hand with a flower tool.
For the bottom of the compartments inside the box, I cut up some of the patterned paper. This box is a lot bigger than I had originally thought and think it will come in very handy now that I have given it a facelift.
The final thing to do was to go over it with wax, which is what I normally like to do, and for this project I used, Prima Art Alchemy Antique Brilliance wax in Lucky Clover and Prima Art Alchemy Opal Magic wax in Vintage Silk. In some of the pictures, you can just catch the shimmer from the Vintage Silk wax.
I like making my craft stash stretch further like any other crafter and having more options to use my craft stuff. It's also really handy to be able to just print off what you need sometimes.
I have really enjoyed working with this kit, especially using these beautiful papers as rice papers for the first time, which I will definitely be trying again.
If you are interested in the link to Opulence by Design's Website, you can follow the link below including the YouTube channel where you will find lots of really inspirational card craft and some brilliant flower making tutorials that I have certainly made use of.
Have a great week whatever you have planned.
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