Tag Archives: altered art

Gift Idea: Altered Wooden Initial

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Wooden alphabet letters are always great embellishments for gifts. Add the letters of the first and/or last names of your friend, co-worker or loved one to any card or mini album page, and the result will be instant success 🙂

For the front cover of my most recent paper bag mini album I altered such a wooden initial.

I first added two colors of Distress Oxide ink to color its base. I also chose several Distress Crayons to decorate later, after the second step.

Once the letter had a base color, I added a texture paste and let it dry. I chose Distress Grit Paste by Tim Holtz, but you can use any paste as long as you choose one that can be colored (some pastes act as a resist, avoid those for this type of project).

I added the paste in random spots, to give the letter a dimensional texture. Distress Grit Paste is semi-translucent, which is why I colored the letter first.

Then I used the Crayons to color the paste. (Crayons work best to color Distress Grit Paste,)

Lastly, when everything had dried, I added it to the album cover as an embellishment.

So you see how you can add a very personal touch to any of your gift projects without it taking a million steps! 🙂

Tutorial: How to Alter a Jewelry Box

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As you know I sometimes alter these nice, small boxes of all shapes and different sizes. This time, as a Christmas present for my mom, I decided to alter a jewelry box and to shoot a short tutorial while I was doing it.

By now I have several “How to alter a box” tutorial videos, all highlighting different aspects. So if you combine them all you get the entire process 🙂 :

  1. On how to lay the foundations of your project, and how to take measurements for all of your mats;
  2. On how to actually mat, and put your box back together (video below)
  3. On the creative side of the process: how do you create a ‘look’, to make it your personal design

So, hopefully you’ll be enjoying – and pressing the Like button! – the below video and pictures, and I’ll be seeing you again next week!

Stamp: Everything has its beauty, but not everyone always sees that

Gift Idea: Upcycled Jewelry Box

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Sometimes that accessory you buy comes in a small jewelry box. My recent such purchase sported the name of the shop on its lid, but apart from that the box had a very nice antique bronze color, which inspired me to re-use it as a gift box.

So I thought I’d share this idea with you today, for this is the perfect little quick scrap gift idea, which you can finish in about 15 minutes (tops). Simply alter the lid, covering the shop’s name or logo, by decorating it with some design paper, a brad, and some embellishments.
It’s very easy to do, it’ll cost you hardly any time at all, and you’ll have a uniquely customized gift box for your present. 🙂

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How to color glass with alcohol ink and wax paint

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Here’s a quick little gift idea: buy a nice little colorless tealight glass, and color it with two or more colors of alcohol ink. Add some extra decorations with wax paint and an art stencil, and you’re ready to go.

I think this took me less than 1 hour to make, including drying time 🙂

 

 

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Monochrome White Micro Chest

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If you’d like to order a customized micro chest, please check out my Showroom of Luxurious Boxes & Gifts.

In this week’s Blog Exclusive post I’m sharing an altered micro chest. You’ve seen me do these before, as nursery decor pieces and as gift boxes both feminine and masculine.

This time I was asked to add a micro treasure chest to one of my customized 100% photo explosion boxes, with the added challenge to work in only one color, creating a so-called monochrome project: white. So I painted the chest white, then matted it with some white wood texture paper that I embossed with a wood pattern first. Finally I created some faux leather strips from white cardstock. I’m quite pleased with the effect, and with the surprisingly different shades of white that are – apparently – possible.

 

Have you ever created any monochrome projects? Do you like them at all? Please share your thoughts in the comment section underneath this post!

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Gift idea: Altered Tea Box

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Tea boxes are the ideal gifts to give and they are very fun and easy to alter!

For instance, I bought this simple wooden tea box, painted it black inside and out, and decorated with Bo Bonny’s Asian-themed Serenity paper collection & ephemera.

I did that once before, using the same design papers – I guess there’s something about Asian-themed paper on a black background, even more so when it’s all about tea 🙂

 


My first altered tea box with this paper collection:

 

Coffee Tray Altered to Photo Tray

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When I found a little gray-painted coffee tray in one of our local home decor stores, I decided it would be perfect for the Stationer’s Desk collection by Prima Marketing. With a lovely summer picture of my mom and dad during their Rome holiday, this collection combined just the right amounts of nostalgia and vintange romance.

Placed upright, any such tray can be turned into the perfect picture frame, adding unique shadow box qualities to what would normally be much more straight-forward and flat. It was great to be able to use up all of my larger flowers of the collection, and because of the many embellishments this project was also perfect for using up some of the scraps I had left over from the paper pad.

Another great advantage was that the tray’s gray color already coordinated perfectly with the papers, so I didn’t have to paint it myself.

All in all a very fun project to do if you’re looking forward to paper crafting but are not in the mood for creating a card or a mini album!

 


Turn your old tea box into a piece of art

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Ever since I’ve become a happy scrapper (which happened winter 2012, when I started my very first experimental scrap project) my view of the world has changed: I’m looking at every object or piece of material as potential raw material with which to create something beautiful. Take my mother’s tea box. I never really noticed the thing, until last month when I turned on my Superscrapper x-ray vision (well, sort of) and saw that it could be in fact Beautiful, as soon as someone would unlock its hidden gorgeousness.

Because it was black, I decided it would be an Asian tea box, for it reminded me of these beautiful black lacquered little treasure boxes of, for instance, the Chinese. It so happened that in my stash I had a lovely Asian-themed design paper waiting to be used: Bo Bunny’s Serenity. So I got to work, and here’s the results!

Click here if you don’t see the video below.

 

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