Hello Everyone,
Wow, July already and half way through 2013. Eek! At my age that is seriously scary how fast the time is whizzing by but at least as I type this we finally have some SUMMER!!!!
This month we lucky Snazzy's DTers have some fab summery stamps to play with from the new JoFY for PaperArtsy release. I love these quirky fun stamps (HERE) and the main set I was sent to work with are JoFY13. Lots of lovely daisies on this set and daisies always bring a smile to my face, even if they're in the middle of my lawn, lol!
I decided to decorate a treasure chest shaped wooden box (Snazzy's have a lovely selection of substrates).
I've mainly used Fresco Finish acrylic paints to colour the box because these are the type of which I have the most colours but Snazzy's carry a lovely range of acrylic paints too. Firstly I removed the hinges and fastener and gave the outside of the box a coat of Claret. Once dry I gave it a liberal coat of Fresco Crackle Glaze and here's where I made my first mistake, lol! I tried to do too much of the box at one go (too impatient!) and (second mistake) I put the glaze on too thick so the it ran down and congealed in thick lumps in many areas. So much so that I had to peel it off and start again. ..... good lessons learned there. After that I did one section at a time and let it dry which took me a couple of days to do all the top and all four sides of the bottom. Because the top is curved I tried not to put too thick a layer on but it still ran to the edges a little bit. Anyway, I then gave it a coat of Vintage Lace and got a gorgeous all over crackle effect ..... was worth all the faffing about, lol!
Next I started the stamping which was all done with black Archival ink and coloured with watered down Fresco Finish paint. I've not tried colouring stamped images with acrylic paint before and need a lot more practice but for this particular project I didn't want a perfect paint job so it was ok. The 'don't eat the daisies' phrase and the quote on the top both come from JoFY12 set.
I stamped the dragonfly onto some card from my bit box that I'd made a lovely mica ink background on and again onto a piece of acetate I'd coloured with alcohol inks, cut them both out and layered them attaching just the bodies and the same when attaching to the box.
I had already given the inside a coat of Vintage Lace around the sides, then I cut two pieces of card to fit the bottom and the top, painted them with the same colour, and stamped and coloured as per the outside before gluing them in with Cosmic Shimmer glue. Finally I reattached the hinges and fastener.
And there you have it!
Don't forget to leave a comment on Gillian's post HERE if you want to be in the random draw for some of these stamps. I'll be back later in the week with another project but till then
