Converted cookie Gift Box

I have a converted cookie gift box to share today.  Like many crafters, I tend to collect and keep 'things' that I think might come in handy one day and this particular cookie box from a pizza place enters my house regularly when my son is home from Uni.

This is the type of project that I really enjoy doing; making something out of nothing.

This is how my gift box started its life. I have saved a few of these that are clean inside, deconstructed and put away as they are a good size for a dimensional shaped cards, mdf or more cookies!!

I went through my Tattered Lace dies to see what delicate lace dies I had to fit on this box as I was sure that I had one for my flowers to sit on and I found the Nested Quatrefoil die set from the Winter Solstice collection that was the perfect size for this box.

I die cut the lacy detail from the lighter colour block paper from the Digital Florist Pansy Leaf Former Sheet by Opulence by Design and the solid shape from that beautiful salmon pink colour paper in the Digital Florist Ranunculus Flower Former Sheet.

I printed my flowers as usual onto 120 gsm colour document Navigator paper, which I like to use as it works well for me and then layered them up. They look quite different to the ones I made on the pearlescent paper.  I inked the edges with a violet rose sparkle dinky inky by The Dreamees and added some springtime Flowersoft to the centres of my flowers.

It was then just a case of building up the layers on top of my box. I edged my die cut toppers with my stardust gelly roll pen. I have a few of these as I go through them. It adds enough of a shimmer to your projects without too much glitter and without the mess of glitter.

I then added sisal, pollen head stamens, frosted berries and the variegated ivy leaves also by Opulence by design.  I like the different sizes on this sheet as they work so well to just poke into little corners of your project.  I think these Ranunculus flowers work really well on gift boxes.

A few 4mm mint pearls to finish off and my little cookie box has a new lease of life. I just have to decide what I am going to put in this one now.

If you are after some crafting inspiration why not pop over to YouTube and follow Opulence by Design. There are also some wonderful flower-making tutorials

https://www.youtube.com/@opulencebydesign/featured

Have a great week whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

Challenges:

Love to scrap : ATG

Crafts Galore Encore - ATG

Earth Queen Shadow Box Frame

I'm really excited to be a guest for this month's challenge over at Creative Artiste Mixed media Challenge.  The theme is always anything goes with mixed media so decided that that my shadow box frame would be a good project to share with you all.

There is a lot that I really like about this Magic Forest collection from Stamperia and  in particular the Earth Queen mold. I am still quite a novice with mixed media and gradually building up my stash so tend to use whatever I have in my stash to compete my projects, with a bit of experimenting along the way.

I finally found a use for a 6 x 6 inch wood box frame that I had bought a few years ago and decided to make a paper mache textured base for my box using torn up tissue and pva glue. I then added lots of texture to resemble tree bark with a pokey tool. I thought this would give me  a more rustic base rather than texture paste and its cheaper too!

Once dry I planned to paint it first with black gesso and then with burnt sienna acrylic paint, leaving a hint of the black to show through.

I also experimented with colouring my air dry clay.  The closet colour that I had in my stash to a skintone ish colour was Pebeo studio acrylics paint in buff, and it worked out fine (although its not a great picture). This saved me having to worry about a streaky face and it did look a lot better when I added some highlighter blusher all over (that I no longer use) to add some tone.

Being a very slow crafter these days the painting of the Earth Queen mould was probably what took me the longest to finish purely because I use a very fine paintbrush as I find it easier to paint with less mistakes and do a section at a time. I also used burnt sienna acrylic paint for her hair too and LuminArte H20  watercolour paint in gold for her hair band.

I painted my leaves with Stamperia Allegro paint in avocado, adding a touch of  ocra acrylic mixed into the centres for more tone and then edged them with Art Alchemy antique brilliance lucky emerald wax. I love using wax, it really brings out the detail in your projects.

I used part of one of the rice papers from the Magic Forest collection on the base of the frame and used Art Alchemy rusty brown matt wax, a little antique gold wax and patina antiquing paste wax on the jewelled piece at the front to finish my frame off.

I have really enjoyed creating this shadow box frame and hope join the in the challenge this month too.  There are some amazing projects and inspiration over on the blog to follow too every month.

Have a fab week, whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

Birthday Ranunculus flower card

A special birthday card to share for a friend today. I knew what I wanted to make for this one and by changing the type of paper that I decided to print my downloadable file on, totally changed how my card turned out.

I used the Digital Florist Ranunculus Flower Former Sheet by Opulence by Design, which comes with 2 bonus plain colour sheets. I printed these onto Centura Pearl snow white pearlescent paper from Crafters Companion. I love this paper and use this to die cut my flowers too.

These flowers are so beautiful on their own but by printing onto a different paper you can create a totally different texture and fantasy flowers for your projects especially if you layer them up and edge them with a gold ink pad as I have done here.

 I have used the my pokey tool to curl some the petals very slightly and thought the pearls finished them off nicely. These were large beads, you can hide the holes easily, I find sometimes flat back pearls don't nest as well in the centre.

I printed the lightest colour sheet onto Centura Pearl snow white pearlescent paper to coordinate with my flowers and used the papers to die cut too. The dies I have used for this card are the Centre of Attention die from the Portmanteau collection from Tattered Lace. 

I do love this die collection by Tattered Lace and I have layered the dress on the mannequin with the papers to add some dimension.

I normally make an envelobox for my cards that have a bit of dimension to them and as this is A5 in size I know that I can easily make one out of a piece of 12 x 12 inch cardstock so that it will hopefully reach its destination as it left.

If you are interested in more inspiration from Opulence by Design and love crafting and making flowers as I do you can follow her on  Youtube https://www.youtube.com/@opulencebydesign/featured

Have a great week whatever you have planned for your self

Happy crafting

Challenges: 

Love to Scrap - ATG

Crafts Galore Encore - ATG

Ellibelles Corner - ATG

Classic Designs - ATG

Krafty Chicks - ATG

Creative Fingers - ATG

Crafty Calendar - ATG

Pretty Primulas

I have a few more flower cards that I have been meaning to share using these Pretty Primulas flower forming sheets so I thought I'd do a quick post to show you them.

I made this card for my neighbour who had recently come out of hospital after an operation. I used these beautiful Digital Florist Pretty Primula Flower Forming Sheets by Opulence by Design, along with the Digital Florist Pansy Leaf flower forming sheets which I really love using with my flowers.

I printed my flowers as usual onto 120 gsm colour document Navigator paper and I also printed the bonus colour block sheets out so that I could die cut the layers for my card using one of my  Tattered Lace oval torn edge die sets.

I've added a little Stickles glitter glue to the centre of my flowers and a dragonfly die cut to the the sentiment.

My second card is a 6 x 6 inch greeting card. I added this adorable topper with my favourite little bird on a branch. I also used the colour block papers with the downloads for the die cuts on my cards too, matching the green background with the pansy leaves.

You can download this  FREEBIE Birdie on a Branch  from the website. It also comes with another topper and a selection of sentiments. I've added the link below for you to view and download other free downloadable projects available.  The papers are great to use for your die cutting and flower making too.

https://shop.obyd.co.uk/collection/free

I like to layer up my blooms and cut into the petals a little so that I can give them some shape. I think detail in these pansy leaves is very natural and I like to curl them both inwards and outwards, then cluster them altogether like they look in my garden. My flowers have a bit of sparkle in the middle from my Stickles glitter glue too.

I have a family of these little lovelies visiting my garden everyday and they are such a joy to see.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend whatever you have planned 

Happy crafting

Challenges:-

Beautiful Blossoms - Flowers

Love to Scrap - ATG

Creative Fingers - AG

Crafts Galore Encore - AG

Classic Designs - ATG

Krafty Chicks - AG