Decorated MDF Gift Boxes

I had a few small MDF gift boxes sitting in my craft box for a long time, waiting to be decorated, so I thought it was time to use them.

For the front of the boxes, I used the dragon images from The Dragon Breathing Courage & Creativity digital download collection by Opulence by Design Crafts.  

 

I use a Canon Mega Tank inkjet printer to print these images onto rice paper, and I also used it on the base of my boxes with the dragon skin design from the same collection. It's one of my fav papers as I love the faux texture for my boxes.

My decorated dragon box can be found here from a previous blog post.

Lidl offer a cracking selection of art products from time to time. I bought a set of metallic paints by CreaBox a year ago, and unfortunately, I have used the last of the metallic green from this set, which you can see on the book box trays. It has obviously been a favourite colour of mine.

These little boxes came as a set of 3 from The Works, but I had to throw the smallest one away as it was so badly split on closer examination; it just wasn't worth decorating. As suggested to me, I will look out for boxes in charity shops or just look for better quality ones.

For some added texture around the edges of the book boxes, I used a touch of Pretty Gets Gritty's mousse in Sea Glass.

Apparently, these drawers are just the right size for a collection of mini figures. 

I just added some glossy accents to the top of the boxes to finish them off.

For my second project, I found a nice little MDF Treasure chest in Hobbycraft that would work well with the fairy image that I had intended to use.

I chose the Fairy Wishes & Pixie Kisses 8 x5 inch PDF Petra print from Opulence by Design Crafts for the lid of the chest. It's a beautiful digital download that is also available as a one sheet wonder greeting card. The treasure chest has also been given a light coat of white gesso to help highlight the rice paper image.

On the sides, I have used A Spectrum of colour Script paper pack. This is such a versatile digital download kit to have in your crafty stash.

I painted the inside of the chest and base with a blue Metallic pearl acrylic paint.

This little girl loves fairies, so I thought a little treasure chest would be ideal.

I've edged the lid of the box with gold wax

I also had these shapes in my MDF box and thought that a hanging fairy plaque would make a nice addition.

I've added braid to the edge of the hanging plaque, and the hanging mdf fairy has been heat embossed with ice blue embossing powder.

These were fun little projects to make and have already gone off to their new home.

Thanks for stopping by today to view my little crafty space.

Opulence by Design Crafts has a fantastic variety of digital download kits for your crafty needs, along with a mini blog for inspiration. They also have a variety of crafting booklets for those who can not print their crafty designs.

Have a great week, whatever you have planned for yourself.

Happy Crafting

Challenges

Neglected Stuff- AG - MDF boxes & MDF pieces

Mix It Up - AG

Love Crafting -handmade gift

Love to Craft - AG

DLART -AG

Allys Angels -AG

Creative Crafting Uncles - AG

Avenue 613 - AG  - Front Porch Winner  

Hearts Quest Fantasy - ATG Fantasy - Legendary Honourable Mention (Dragon)

Decorated Book Box

I'm honoured to be a guest DT again at Creative Artiste Mixed media Challenge for this month. The theme is always anything goes with mixed media and today I'm sharing another A5 book box that I have decorated for a birthday gift, one of my favourite things that I enjoy doing. 

I used one of Gecko Galz beautiful images from their blog for the front of my box and gave the box a coat of white gesso before using one of Stamperia's stencils with texture paste to create the design for my box.

I also added texture paste down the edge of the box and created the faux book pages. When dry, the edge of the box was painted in a buff acrylic paint.

I chose to paint the outside of the box with this blue pearl paint from Pebeo which is a more turquoise shade, I thought would compliment the image on my box really well.  When dry, I added a touch of gold wax over the stencilled areas of the box.

I then added a few metal embellishments with a little gel medium and didn't think it needed any more on this particular project.  The inside of the box has also been painted with gold metallic paint.

Gecko Galz also have loads of inspiration on their blog along with challenges to enter and free images to download to craft with.  Pop over to their page follow and subscribe to their monthly newsletter.

I enjoy decorating these types of boxes, they come in very handy and make nice gifts too.

Don't forget to drop by Creative Artiste's blog challenge there are some amazing projects and fabulous inspiration on their blog and links to their DT for you  to follow.

Perhaps think about adding your project and sharing your love of craft, just follow the link below.

Have a great day,  whatever you have planned for yourself and fab weekend to come too!

Happy Crafting

Challenges:

Creative Fingers - AG

Creative Inspiration - AG

Stencil Fun -shades of blue

Allys Angels - AG

Crafts Galore - AG  DT Favourite

Creatalicious - AG

Through the Purple Haze - AG

Love to Craft - AG

Love to Scrap AG

Gothic Book Box

I have finally finished my gothic book box which has been a work in progress project and I'm really pleased with how this one turned out.

All the inspiration for this project was taken from Sue Andrews - Magik Graphics mixed media live Facebook group.

I chose this beautiful image of the Midnight Roses CD by Magik Graphics, which decided the colourways for my box.

I used Pebeo high density modeling paste through one of Stamperia's stencils.  This texture paste is nice and smooth and leaves a great defined texture to your project but I would have preferred it in a jar rather than in a tube. It did dry pretty quickly but as I'm a slow crafter I normally leave things to dry overnight anyway.

The book box was given a coating of black gesso except for the inner edges which I painted in buff acrylic paint to look like pages, adding some texture to mimic the edges of the pages. My new favourite paint is the Finnibair metallics range. It's difficult to capture the true colour and shimmer in a picture but for this project, I picked plum, which was the closest to the colours in the image.  I dry brushed the colour, leaving some of the black to show through.

I think the gilding wax always finishes a project off and really highlights all that texture on your project.  I also used the alchemy tag moulds by Stamperia to create the tag and some of the embellishments for my box using air dried clay.

I knew those broken chains that I kept would come in handy one day. Attached to one of the tags that I had made, it was a perfect hanging embellishment. This was attached with a little leatherette cord, inside the top of the box. This is why as crafters we keep all these random little bits and pieces.

I can get a  bit carried away when I have a pot of gilding wax in my hands. Even the brass butterfly and key had touch of wax to lift them and the rose paper flower just didn't look right with its green stem, so that had to go too.

This now sits in my bedroom.  I don't keep many things that I make as I am so used to making for others and a lot of my own craft projects tend to sit on the back burner with the garden ones being the ones that do eventually get finished as that is where I tend to spend a lot of time.

As I am stepping away from making as many cards now, I'm hoping to focus more on some mixed media projects

Have a great day, whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

added to:  The River of Creativity Challenge  (Shoutout for May challenge)