Creative Art Storage (Part I)

So with the aftermath of Christmas and the New Year I found myself the owner of several stunning wooden boxes that once housed wine.  They were so nice in fact it seemed a sin not to up-cycle them into some crafty storage containers that I could paint to match my craft room.  My craft room is a lovely pastel blue so I decided it would be an opportune moment to use the Decopapers I purchased in the Hobbycraft sale with a peacock pattern (something to which I am strangely being drawn to a lot lately).

As you will see from the picture below I decided to firstly decorate the lid.  To prepare the surface I put a thin gesso undercoat so that other Acrylic paints etc; would adhere to the surface.

I then proceeded with a watered down coat of Orchid fresco paint from Paper Artsy.  Once this had been allowed to dry I proceeded using the cross painting technique with Beach Hut Fresco Paint around the outside borders of the lid.  This unfortunately did not give me the effect I wanted so I added a cross painting layer of cobalt blue hue acrylic on to the box lid, this improved the darker patches to where I wanted them so I then added patches of Daler Rowney Irridescent Blue Acrylic Paint in the lighter areas.

When this was finished drying it still needed a little something so using FW Acrylic Inks in Pearlescent Blue and Violet I added further layers of colour and effect to the lid.

Once the last layer of ink etc; had dried I adhered the decopaper to the lid using Mod Podge and sealed it using Mod Podge Shimmer  Silver Glue.

Once this layer had dried I added some over stamping of texture using Cobalt Blue Archival Ink and a antique font stamp and Violet Archival Ink with a block floral print on to the box and over the peacock print to keep it tied in together.

Finally using FW White Pearlescent Acrylic ink I randomly used the dropper to apply the ink and let it run down the length of the box.  The letters are a clear white letter from Zig which I used to spell out the word "Ribbon", which can be purchased from Stamp Addicts (www.stampaddicts.co.uk).  I have one final touch to add to the lid which will follow in my later blog posting along with the completed box image.

I hope you enjoy this entry.  Only one more work day until the weekend.

Emma