Gable Box

I am grateful to Regina Andari of Splitcoast Stampers http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/gablebox/ for the template and instructions for my project of today, a "gable box" - a small box with a top which looks like a roof, to contain a small gift.

We have been invited out to lunch tomorrow (actually, later today! - I'm still up at 1 a.m.!) by a very special family friend; I wanted to take a little present for her and thought the usual box of choccies could be improved upon somewhat, so I made this to contain some choccies instead!

It's really hard to get the colours exactly right on the photo, particularly in artificial light, and especially when the colours are very subtle, and blended, but I think you can get the idea.

I made the box from a piece of buff coloured cardstock, and the side panels were cut from a lighter shade of beige. These were then decorated and applied.

The flower was made from some bits from the big bunch of silk flowers I bought for a song at our village fete recently. The centre was made from a small pink flower which I spritzed with Tim Holtz DIY glimmer mist (Spun Sugar and Perfect Pearls). The outer part is made from a wrecked bright yellow chrysanthemum - still lots of that one left for future use! which I sprayed first with some more DIY glimmer mist, this time using Pumice Stone, and then a little in the centre, using Chipped Sapphire. I had to be very careful with this as it's a very strong dark blue colour. Applied onto the dulled yellow of the flower, it turned a lovely shade of green. Of course, the whole flower has a slight iridescence to it from the Perfect Pearls in the glimmer mist. This piece of silk chrysanthemum was then crumpled up in the centre and glued. I also added a sprig of red twiggy stuff from a large bowl of potpourri on our sitting room table! (Too good not to use!)

Before assembling the box, I inked the top part and the corners of the box with a little Tim Holtz Forest Moss Distress Ink, darkened with some Pumice Stone Distress Ink. I added some rubber stamping on the handles, using Tumbled Glass Distress Ink, the blue blending with the green to produce a darker green.

I then decorated the panels by applying some colour directly from the stamp pads onto my glass craft mat, using Distress Inks in Tumbled Glass, Spun Sugar and Bundled Sage, which I then spritzed with water, and laid the panels face down to pick up the colour. I dried them with the heat gun, and repeated the process until I was satisfied with the depth of colour. I then used one of Tim Holtz's small masks (swirl) and applied Forest Moss and Pumice Stone Distress Inks to reveal the pattern. After this I rubber stamped the panels using Tumbled Glass, which turned slightly green over the greenish background. Under the flower there are some leaves stamped using Bundled Sage Distress Ink.

I inked lightly around the edges of each panel using Pumice Stone Distress Ink, applied the flower to the front panel, and then glued the panels to the sides of the box. I cut the handles using a circular punch - the instructions specify an oval punch but I do not have one of these. The finishing touches were the ribbon to hold the handles together, and the small butterfly - and, of course, the choccies inside, with pink tissue paper scrumpled up on top.

This is a very nice shaped box, and easy to assemble. There is no template to print out; the instructions are just for cutting, scoring and folding, and then glueing together. It was cut from a single piece of card.

Altered Mounting Board

Yesterday I rummaged through my store of mounting board which I bought many years ago when I thought I might do the framing for my hubby's watercolour paintings. (This proved a lot more difficult, and a lot less fun than I thought, so I didn't pursue it. After all, our creativity is supposed to be Fun, isn't it??) I had thought of giving it all away, but I have been told that it makes a very good firm substrate for all sorts of surface treatment, while being easy to cut, so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

My first attempt is on dark brown, which perhaps wasn't the easiest choice. I decided to use my new Tim Holtz mask (the large swirl) but wanted it in white, so against his advice to throw away the background sheet when you push the mask out for first use, I thought I'd try using it as a stencil. It was rather difficult to get it to lie flat as it was pretty unstable, and I had to rescue one or two "floating" bits to complete the design. I'm not sure I shall do this again, but I've kept the piece just in case.

I went over the stencil with a white acrylic paint dauber from Tim Holtz's range, and was quite pleased with the result. I then spent the rest of the evening messing about trying to get the effect I wanted - with varying degrees of success!

First of all, I chose a few background texture stamps and stamped randomly over the background using Ranger Archival Ink in black. I included the image when I stamped with my "cracked" effect stamp.

I then worked with the felt applicators, building up layers of Distress Inks in various colours.

These are the colours I used:

I added a bit more stamping using the Archival Ink, and finally I sprayed it with DIY glimmer mist made from Perfect Pearls (Perfect Pearl colour) mixed with Wild Honey and Pumice Stone Re-Inkers respectively, and this had the effect of diluting what I'd already done with the Distress Inks, so I went over it again after the Glimmer Mist was dry.

I'm still not entirely satisfied that this is the look that I want. I think it needs more ink.

I'm also not sure what I'm going to do with it. I could keep it uncut, and build up some surface decoration with texture and embellishments, or I could cut it into smaller pieces to make ATCs, which I would then likewise decorate. To do the latter, I have made a small "window" the size of an ATC, cut from a scrap of mounting board, which I can move over the surface of a larger piece, to isolate the piece(s) which look best for an ATC - I can then draw round the window and cut them out.

Any suggestions would be welcome!