Tag Archives: altering

My Thinking Proces While Decorating a Box (relaxing video)

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This week I’m sharing my thinking process while decorating an altered box. Some things are planned, but not everything. Most things work out, but not everything – and how to fix those. All in all I was pretty contented with how this little treasure chest turned out, and my friend was thrilled to receive it 🙂

If you want to know how to mat such a box in the first place, then check out one of my previous blog posts – or simply scroll down and find that video at the end of this post.

With its 25 minutes this week’s video is a bit long, and I’m mostly rambling on about what the next decorative element might be and why, plus I’m including several tips along the way. So get into your Chill Out mode, get a great cup of coffee or tea and a little snack, sit back, and most of all: relax and let the tone of my voice wash over you. Who knows, if you watch this in bed you may even fall asleep before the end – in which case: Sweet Dreams! 🙂 💤

 

How to mat a box:

 

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Great gift for a guy: Craftsman Chest

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It’s always more difficult to come up with an original gift idea for a man than it is for a woman. I find altering some wooden object a great solution! It’s functional, it has added interest because it usually has some moving parts, like a lid or drawers, and with the right paper you can create quite the masculine project!

Like this little Craftsman Chest here, which by the way has its own little refrigerator magnet as a bonus 🙂 – perfect for hiding one or more giftcards. And, therefore, also perfect to give a present together with other people: they can all put their giftcards into this little chest!

 

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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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Prima Romance Novel altered treasure chest, pt. 1 – Preview / Work in progress

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I’m working on a commissioned altered box at the moment, and I thought it would be fun to share some of the progress.

The person I’m making this for wants to send an altered box to his dear friend in New Zealand (yea, I’m being shipped overseas, woohoo! :-)). He has sent me some short notes he wants to be written on the box and furthermore he’s asked me to do something with a dandelion, or a dandelion theme, as this flower has special meaning to him and his friend.

Here’s what I came up with so far:

  1. I’m going to use the Romance Novel design paper stack, I don’t think there’s a paper out there that’s more fitting! It has everything you could want for a commission like this: it’s gorgeous, it’s romantic AND it has a love letter theme, including vintage postage stamps and the like! How cool is that for a gift that will actually be sent overseas by mail!
  2. I decided I wanted to find a way to create an actual paper dandelion, 3D, life size. Didn’t have a clue how to do it, but I was going to find out and make it work!

So, here’s some pics of the work in progress, enjoy!

The wooden box I’m altering. It’s kind of a mini treasure chest and it’s about 3.5×2.5×2.5 inches (9x6x6 cm). Isn’t it adorable?

First I removed its lock and the hinges on the back. Then I painted it dark brown except its little legs which I painted gold, using simple acryllic paint. I mixed it with a pearl paint to create a pearly shine. Then I sprayed glimmer mist on the whole thing, using Tattered Angel’s Iridescent Gold and Vanilla Breeze. Nothing too fancy, but it does create a very nice, subtle effect. Plus, this box has Golden Feet! 🙂

Here’s the layout for the box. I sprayed each piece of paper with a bit of glimmer mist, using the same two colors I used on the box. Of course I’m going to distress everything as well, for which I’ll be using Tim Holtz’s Black Soot distress ink.


On to the creation of the dandelion. Fortunately the internet was there to teach me how to make one (check out Inna’s Creations, a very creative Israeli lady whose website I stumbled onto. She makes gorgeous paper art!). I started by creating the paper strip on this picture.

Roll up tight!

And spread the little petals. Done – A cute little life-sized paper dandelion! Thank you Inna! 🙂


I’m going to put this inside the box, so that when my friend’s friend opens it, a lovely, bright piece of summer will smile at her 🙂

So, this was part 1 – hope you enjoyed it!

I’ll be showing you the finished product in part 2. Until then, stay creative!