This week a blog exclusive project, so no Youtube video 😉 .
I find that sometimes it’s quite refreshing to vary your techniques, it avoids a rut and it gives the opportunity to create something for someone who may be familiar with papercrafting but not decoupaging.
I had just such a case on my hands, so when I decided to gift a colleague a nice wooden pencil box for her coloring pencils and markers, I decoupaged it with napkins instead of decorating it with scrapbooking paper. She was completely taken by surprise for she had never even heard of this technique and wanted to know everything about it 🙂
The box itself was white, with a plain wooden lid that had The Pencil Box printed on top of it. I used an antique gold colored napkin for the lid without painting it white first, so the words on the lid would come through and remain visible. I decorated the top right corner with some flowers,…
… and the lower left corner with a fussy-cut napkin flower, to which I added several colors of glitter glue.
Napkin decoupaged all around, including the back of the box.
I embellished the front with a satin ribbon, through which I had put a crown brad first.
I left the insides of both the box and the lid plain.
And last but not least, I painted the bottom burgundy, but since that left the surface slightly sticky unexpectantly – as would decoupaging it with napkin – I matted it with a piece of design paper in coordinating colors instead.
In short a relatively quick-to-make gift idea, especially for paper crafting recipients who’ve seen it all – except not 🙂
Sometimes pictures say more than words – and a video tells it all 🙂 In today’s post you’ll find many detailed pictures below the show & tell video, but first I’d like to show you one of the basic micro chests as it was before was altered:
By the way, you want to take the time to work meticulously and with attention to detail, even with a fairly quick & simple design such as this one. For instance, I used more than one piece of napkin here, but can you honestly point out the seams between the pieces…?
…and the top edges of the basket. I mixed that warmer, darker red color on the edges myself, by the way, adding more hints of dark colors to the handle’s bright red until it was just so.
Because the decoupage technique gives you the opportunity to create great projects relatively quickly, it’s also fairly easy to expand your project. Just use more of those awesome napkins that you picked, and make one or more companion pieces.