Decorated Mdf Storage Box

One of the things I really enjoy doing is decorating boxes, especially as they are really handy for keeping all your crafting accessories in afterwards and if you have any favourite rice or scrapbook papers that you have been sitting on because it pains you to use them, this is a good way to use and enjoy them afterwards too.

I gave my box a light coat of white gesso; it helps highlight the rice paper.  I usually buy my large boxes from The Works, as they are the ideal size for me, especially since I like to stack them. However, the quality of these boxes has been getting worse, and it is showing up in all their designs.

I chose these rice papers from Stamperia's Magic Forest collection, which I have had in my craft box for a while.  I particularly love this beautiful image, and I've also used the Earth Queen mould from this collection to make a shadow box frame, which I posted in an earlier blog post.

For the inside base of my box, I painted it with Finnabair Art Alchemy sparks paint in night shadow. 

I chose another rice paper from a different collection as a contrast for the inside lid of my box, and painted the edge of the lid in Miss Moneypenny from IndigoBlu.

In my box of clay and resin moulds, I found these, which I thought I could stick inside the lid after covering in wax.  I  already know what I will use my box for, so the moulds inside the lid will not compromise the contents, and as I like stacking my boxes, I try to keep outside decoration to a minimum.

I used Cadence Magic Satin Bond and seal not just to adhere the rice paper but as a top coat to seal my box.  It leaves a lovely, slightly satin finish to your projects.

My box has also been edged with gold wax

I don't keep many of the things I make, as I usually craft them for a specific occasion or occasionally on request. 

Boxes always come in handy, as you always tend to find or need something to store in them, and why not decorate them to personalise them to your choice. I just need to buy better quality boxes to decorate in the future.

Until I can get back to crafting again, I have the wildlife that come into my small wildlife friendly garden to make me smile. It's looking more on the 'wild side' this year as I haven't been able to do any maintenance in it.

When the neighbour's cat is shading itself behind the pond and waiting for all the small birds to appear, they don't all play nicely in the garden together

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

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

Happy Crafting

Challenges

Try it on Tuesday - Make it Colourful

A Perfect time to craft - ATG

Mix it up -AG

The Outlaws -anything but a card

Crafts Galore - AG

Moving Along With the Times -Feminine

Creative Fingers -AG

Ally's Angels -AG

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

Steampunk Box

I have finally finished another project from last year and I can now put my Steampunk themed box to some use.

The wooden box itself came from The Works, they have a great selection of boxes to craft with and often have various sizes on offer, which is a good time to buy them. They are pretty decent quality for a lightweight box too.

I love LOVE steampunk! There is so much inspiration from Stamperia for their Captain Vagabond collections, sometimes you don't know where to start yourself but I absolutely love this image on one of their rice papers that I have used to cover my box. I haven't gone over top with the decoration because I loved the rice paper too much.

I made the cogs last year after watching a great craft live from Leonie Pujol. She is an amazing inspirational artist. So, I cut up my cardboard soup packaging ready to die cut my cogs and mixed a little sand into my gesso for an uneven gritty texture. 

I didn't have any rust paint so I found a set of mini acrylic paints in a box that my son had left (I think they were from The Works) just perfect for mixing small amounts of paint and when dry I added the copper wax which finished them off nicely. I was really happy with how they turned out.

I used some of the plastic embellishments from the Captain Vagabond collection to decorate the box but used the rice papers all around and edged the box in white gold wax.

After I had varnished the box, I noticed 2 large drips at the back which had dried hard which I really liked, so I added a little white gold wax to highlight them even more. If I had tried to create these, you can bet it would have gone wrong.

I kept the inside quite simple by painting it in a neutral colour with just that striking rice paper design down the centre.

The glossy accent on Sir Vagabonds' glasses worked very well and I used crackle gel on the clock lens on his hat.  I feel the need to do another box now! I love mixed media and really don't do enough of it.

If you're crafting, what's on your craft table today? Have a great day whatever you have planned for yourself

Happy crafting

Challenges

Arty Divas - ATG

Creative Artiste - AMMG

Mix it Up - ATG no stamping

Love to Craft- ATG

Crafts Galore Encore - ATG  (Design Team Favourite)

Love to Scrap - ATG

Creative Fingers - ATG

WeLove2Create - AMMG

Paper a La Mode - ATG

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)