Altered Wooden Box

The challenge at Tuesday Taggers this week is to use Autumnal Colours in our projects. This is a real bonus for me as I just LOVE Autumn. The trees around where I live are the most fantastic colours at the moment and there are wonderful shiny conkers on the ground. We have had our first rain today for ages and now it smells of Autumn too.


Anyway back to the project.....
I had a little hinged wooden box in my craftroom just waiting to be altered....another crafty bargain from the range....

I wanted to use Autumn Colours but also get the sheen that you find on fresh conkers....lol

So out came the pearl powders, metallic dabbers, perfect medium, a maple leaf stamp, etc etc, a piece of ribbon, a few pieces of Tim Holtz Idea-ology and some words from a download from Lisa's Altered Art.


After painting all over the box with Black Acrylic paint and leting it dry, I then painted the lid with a variety of mica pigments in strong Autumnal colours in a random fashion. When this was dry I overstamped with clear perfect medium and the maple leaf stamp and coloured these with dry pearl pigments in copper and brass, I spritzed these lightly with water to set and then overstamped again using the same stamp and black stayzon to get a really layered look like a pile of fallen leaves.

I overpainted the black body of the box with a gold acrylic dabber and then distressed it when dry with a coarse sanding block, then rubbed aged mahogany distress ink over the top. I inked and distressed my words and adhered them with dilute PVA which I then used to seal the whole of the box.

An idea-ology Lock plate, brads, sprocket and spinner were attached to the front of the box and the woven ribbon used on the edge of the lid and bottom of the box.


This was quite an experimental piece as I was using a lot of my supplies in ways that they weren't designed for, for example the distress ink wouldn't dry and fix on top of the acrylic paint, but the PVA sealant prevented this being a problem, in fact there was a bonus in as much as the distress ink became more vibrant and moved around with the PVA in a way which improved the look of the box. I also tried a sandwich crackle technique on the body (I painted the crackle medium between the black and gold acrylic layers) which didn't work, thus necessitating the heavy handed distressing to get a similar effect. At the end of the day though I am really happy with what I achieved and had a great time creating it.

I hope you like it too.

Bee xx