Week 9 - A project from Stash

Over the weekend, I was showing a friend how to alter a box.  I started off making one for a swap and decided I came up with the wrong color of red, so I decided to just play and this is what I came up with.  I went with a simple, clean vintage with a dash of elegance.

I started by painting the box with a couple of coats of MS Habenero Red satin paint.  Let dry.  Once I decided to use the G45 Communique papers.I love the black and white diamonds (go figure...are we sensing a theme here...lol).  Plus this pattern had tiny little bits of red in it.   I decided that the box was too red.  I decided to use a technique (I know I didn't invent it, but I don't know what the heck it is called).  I call it dredging.  So i take my finger and "dredge" it in the lid of the black pain so I get a little bit on my finger and I smear it on the box in different places.  Then I take the red paint and "dredge" it through the black kind of smearing them together.  I love the outcome. 

I used the black and white paper as my base.  I added a strip of black cardstock to mat the red patterned paper that was left over from the inside of the box.  I added some of the images from the stack.  They already had a nice thick back border.  I just added a tiny bit of red paint and wiped off the black and white image (tanish too) to tie it in with the rest of the images.  I added a black flourish and a couple of TC corners.  However, I didn't like that they were so silver (which I loved) against the color of the box closure.  So I added just a little Inka Gold in gold to the corners to make them match a little better. 

 On the inside I lined with the red print.  I added a little pocket on the inside lid from the reverse print of the paper.  I added a little bit of black trim and tucked some of the images inside the pocket.  I forgot to mention that I adhered all the papers down and sealed on top with multi-medium matte.

 I added feet ( just round beads painted the same way as the box) to give the box a little more substance.  I did ink all the edges of the paper in black before adhering to the outside/inside of the box.

Week 8 Organization

So I am trying to do some storage and I have quite posted all I am doing ... yet.  I have been working on ribbon storage.... you can see the reason why - there is ribbon everywhere.

 Now in my defense.... some of the ribbon in jars has been in my stash a really long time, the piles of ribbon in the bucket is snug hug I just dyed for a swap.  There are some ribbons in the bag. 

So I decided I needed to organize the ribbon.  I don't necessarily like shoving it all in jars and getting it all tangled.  If I went that route, I would need more jars.  I don't really like the spool systems because they take up a lot of room.  I searched the internet and didn't find anything out there I liked.  So I decided to come up with my own idea.  I decided to make ribbon books.  I made the boo ks from chipboard, paper, TH binder rings, and a few embellies (I kept it on the simple side).  I am going to make a box or two for all the ribbon books to fit in. The two boxes will be 9 3/4" deep by 5 1/4" high by 10 1/4" wide.  I am going to wait on doing the boxes until the I am done with all the binders and all the ribbon has been wound so that I can make the right quantity of boxes and size of box.  Don't want to have to go back and do it again.

Here is the first book I made - simple, easy, and it holds a ton of ribbon.  Each page holds 7 - 12 ribbons (less if really wide trim)  It holds 2 -5 yards of ribbon per slot depending on the type of ribbon.  Each book holds 6 to 8 pages depending on how much ribbon is put on per slot (bulk).  On average it is about 70/80 ribbons at 3 yards a piece.  That is 210 - 240 yards of ribbon per book! 

I have been doing all my organizational items kind of in the same theme....black and white diamond paper from the Graphic 45 OCS paper with the orange butterfuly.  I added metal corners because I thought that the books would have a lot of use and that would help them hold up to more abuse.

On the spine I added a TH Book plate so that I can mark the color of the ribbon(s) for easy reference.





 On the inside - it is hard to tell, but I did not punch holes in the cards to fit on the binder rings.  I used metal clips as I didn't want the holes to wear out over time. 

 I measured and hand cut each of the notches for the ribbon to fit onto.  That is the LONGEST part of the whole process along with wrapping all the ribbons.  I am trying to think of a way to speed that process up.

week 7 - projects from stash

My partner on the CMB has her scrap room decorated in blacks, creams, browns, white.  She had received a couple of items in the G45 Curtain Call paper and said it went well with her room.  I was going through my stash and came across some of these canisters (as I kept bumping into a bag of these)  and new I needed to make a set.  I used the black paper with the brown polka dots as the base paper.  Then I cut lables using the Sophisticated Cricut cartridge.  Inked the edges and applied with multi-matte medium by ranger - love that stuff.  I also put a coat of it on the top of each layer to seal instead of using modge podge.  I layered a black doily on top.  Then i took a piece of brown tule and glued it on to the doily so that it would peek out of the next layer.  Then I took tags from the tag sheet of the stack and layered it on with pop dots.  Then for finishing touches I added flowers, pearl stick pins, and feathers. On the lids, I left them simple and just added the pearl trim to the edges.

 I have had this dress form in my stash for a while.  I had got it on sale at M's.  Thought about using it as a dangle tree.  Since my partner loves dress forms I thought it would be perfect for her.  I inked the top, added pearl trim at the neck, some flowers on the shoulder, dyed seam binding at the waist, and pearls on the bottom.  I think base had looked a little plain so I  tule, flowers, tags, and pearls.

 This picture is a little fuzzy, but I altered a peach can to coordinate with the canister set.

Week 6 - Use your Stash - Birdcage

I picked up some laser cut birdcages from Michael's on Mother's Day with a gift card from my sweet baby boy.  As I sit working on some other projects and waiting for them to dry.  I decided to paint two bird cages.  This one was going to be simple and elegant, like Jackie O.  The goal here was to complete a challenge where you scraplift a project and put your own twist. The one I was looking at for my inspiration was from Coyote Kim.

I started it off by painting it linen.  Way to plain for me.  I am not a big fan of really light neutrals.  It just wasn't working.  So I mixed some linen paint with chocolate brown and gave it another coat.  NOPE...still wasn't working for me.  So I took a sponge brush and dipped it in water and then in some bronze paint, repeated with bown, linen, and black.  Before I new it .....I had grunged that sucker out!

I added tule, flowers, metal flowers, pearls, pearl button, book plate, word plate, key, lock, gears, clock face, spinner, crinkle ribbon, black gem flourish, black gems.... yikes there is a lot.  Instead of Jackie O .....It looks like Jackie O got in a smackdown with Snookie.  Oh well, not what I was going for...but I love it.   Definitely has my own spin.

Week 5 - Using Your Stash - Box

My partner received her box.  I showed a sneek peak of it in an earlier post.  Now I can show the whole thing.  I know this box would not be for everyone.  It is very grunge.  This box was a bit of a challenge for me because I had to use what was in my stash.  So I new I wanted to go grunge, I wanted the main color to be purple, and I wanted incorporate the quote by Pablo Picasso somehow.
The theme for the swap was to use from your stash.  I wanted to stay true to the theme so I went with what I had.  If I were to do it over, I would have gone and purchased regular purple paint.  It would have been so much easier.

1.  Removed all hardware from box.
2.  Painted the box brown.  This is just a quick base coat and the painting does not have to be perfect.
3.  Rubbed a candle on the edges of the box and places inside and out.
4.  Painted the box purple.  This is where my challenge began with this box.  Normal regular paint would just take one coat to cover the brown.  I  only had MS pearl paint in the purple.  It took 4 coats to get a solid purple color and to cover the brown.  Next time to the store with me. 
5.  Sand the box. T he paint where the wax is will come off easily (in theory) leaving a distressed box.  The challenge here was that I had to take off 4 layers of paint.  It all worked in the end.  Usually this step is fast, but took longer.
6.  Problem - my grungy purple box was ms pearlescent pretty and sparkly.  Not going to work.  So I had to think on how to dinge the box up a bit.  I took a wet paper towel and dipped it in the distress ink vintage photo and rubbed over the box.  It was a little better, but not quite there.  I sprayed coffee shop and deep plum glimmer mists on to the box and let them puddle a bit and then just dabbed the paper towel along the box, being careful not to wipe.  End result was a more grungier look.  This I could work with.
7.  I looked for grungy purple paper and couldn't find what I was looking for so I decided to make a tile for the top of the box out of ranger foil tape.  I embossed the piece and painted with gesso.  I really recommend that step when using alcohol inks.  I think the colors come out more vibrant with less ink. 
7.  I put it on the box and messed around with placement.  It just felt lost on there.  I took some purple magic mesh and put it on the box to anchor the tile. It was better, but it just felt like it was just floating on the box.
8. I messed around with covering the box in gears and other embellies - but it looked out of place.
 I decided to move onto the quote.  I was going to type it and put it in a book plate.  Then I decided to take off all the embellies and put the quote on the magic mesh.  I looked at using different letters, but I wanted the look to be grungy.  So I ended up using the metal letters I had in my stash.  I posted previously how I did those letters.
9.  Once I got the quote on, the tile still looked a bit lost on the box, so I decided to frame it out to give it a more finished and substantial appearnance.  I just took a piece of the foil tape and painted it with gesso.  Inked it in rust and then spray painted it with spray webbing.
10.  I just added a couple of embellishments as the box already had a lot going on with the tile and the quote. 
11.  I alcohol inked the hardware in rust and then put back on the box.
Finished box:

I also sent this partner the metal butterfly from an earlier post.  The dyed lace, the altered altoids tin, and dyed seam ribbon with flowers were all extras.  The tin is defenitely purple...I wanted to stick with her favorite color.  You really cannot tell from this angle, but there are feet on the box - I used hitch fastners.  It is a bit brighter in the picutres than up close.  I used purple patina inks and rust alcohol inks for the tin.  I used alcholol and patina inks for the top bof the tin. Here is a close up.

Week 4 - Thrift Store Finds

So I have two thrift store finds that I altered.  It is fun to look at things in a different way.