shadow box tutorial

I am a bit of hoarder regarding packaging and I always see potential in everything. And yes I am guilty of buying food and such, just because the use of what it comes in!! We are a big fan of french cheeses and they come in awesome wooden or cardboard containers. I usually save them and make shadow boxes out of them.

Today I want to share my latest shadow box project...

I start out with this rectangular box. It had a really nice strong french cheese in it hahaha. It aired out so it is not smelly anymore ;-)

I cut strips from my stash of pretty papers to cover the outside and inside of the sides of the box. The inside of the background will be covered with something else.

Here you see the sides covered with the paper.

The inside of the shadowbox will be my focal point. I cut some watercolour cardstock to size, and stamp my focal image with stazon or archival ink. I am going to layer some stamps, so I will be using a mask to cover the gentleman.

After I covered the Chemist with a mask, I stamped the background in Sepia Archival ink and blended some distress ink to give it a weathered and antique look. I love the various masking techniques. Here I just used a standard mask I made from blank masking sheets and my stamp. After I remove the mask, my focal background image is ready to be coloured in with distress markers...

After I coloured him in, I glued him to the back of the box. My background now has a base.
I will now add more dimension by adding layers of embellishments and stamped images.

I stamped a apothecary image, part of the stamp set the Chemist is from, a set by Tim Holtz, who else hahaha. I stamped it on vellum so it is a bit translucent and gives a nice effect once coloured in. I decided to colour it in with sharpies.

After I coloured everything in I cut it up in pieces so I can start assembling my layers.

To give it dimension I used 3D glue dots, I couldn't use foam tape, as that would show through the vellum. At some points I had to use more than one dot as I really wanted itto be three dimensional.

I just doubled and trippled the dots on top of eachother.

I stuck the vellum pieces to the background. I can now add all the embellishments to complete my little apothecary scene.

I added some glass viles I altered, you can read in my previous blog post how I did that, and added some embellishments I made with stamps, dies and shrink plastic.

Befor I glued in the background, I attached two hooks with two brads, this way the box can be hung on the wall. The background image covers the brads.

I always like to personalise the shadow boxes for the person I make it for. This box is for a lady that works with essential oils and does aroma therapy, and her favpurite bird is the red cardinal. So I found a little bird in my stash of charms, I coloured it red and black to resemble the cardinal. I cut of the ring off and glued it in the box.

More embellishments were added like a clock and glasses. Once I am happy with the content I cover the box with a sheet of acetate as I want to protect the inside from dust.

I glued the acetate on top of the rim of the box and secured it with a washi tape strip. I covered that with a strong glue medium, so it all stays in place.

On the acetate I glued a word band to give the box its identity so to speak. Glossy accents is my go to glue for nearly everything!

The box needed something to give it the finishing touch, so I took four metal corners from my stash and covered them with paint to give them a faux patina. The paint is wiped off once the paint is almost dry. This way it stays on the corners in certain areas and wiped off on others. I love doing this to metal embellishments, it sort of brings them to life!

The corners are glued on the box with hot glue and the altered box of cheese is now a miniature laboratory.

What a way to upcycle huh? I hope it gave you an idea what you can do with the simplest thing!

Have a wonderful crafty day and take care.
Until next time :-)

Frederique

antique glass tutorial

I was asked to do a few tutorials again, so here is the first one for 2016!
A friend of mine sent me tiny glass viles, and I antiqued them Tim Holtz style.

After posting them on Facebook, I was asked quite a few times how I did it, so below the step by step tutorial. I used a bigger jar as the viles were all done already.

This is a clean plain glass jar.

I covered the jar with a matte medium. I used Claudine Helmuth Studio by Ranger, but a matte mod podge or something similar will do also. Let that dry really well.

After the jar had completely dried, I covered it with a medium layer of Rock Candy Distress Crackle Paint. Again, this needs to dry completely.

The next step is selecting a colour to stain the glass with. In this case I wanted the glass to have a vintage blue look so I went for the aqua alcohol ink.

This is what the glass looks like after I applied the alcohol ink with my ink blending tool and felt.

This is the befor picture of the tiny glass viles I was given.....

And this is what the viles look like now...

I hope this tutorial was helpful and you will give this a try, it is so much fun and looks amazing.

Until.next time, take care.

Frederique

12 tags of 2016

A new year, new challenges. And as always Tim starts the year with a great challenge again.
I finally found the time to make a tag for the 12 tags again and my goal is to make them every month.
So here is my entry for January:

#12 tags of 2015 November tag...

I decided to take a break from making christmas cards and make the november tag from Tim Holtz for 12 tags of 2015....

So here it is:

Alcohol ink background tutorial

I posted some tags today in various facebook groups and people kept asking me how I make the tartan/plaid backgrounds on some of them.

It is done with an ink blending tool and alcohol inks.

I cut some blank tags from specialty paper for alcohol inks. That could be glossy paper or just coated  paper. I have both but for this technique I prefer the coated paper that is also suited for copics or promarkers.

Most people that know me know I love working on tags. 

I squirted some alcohol

inks colours on my blending tool with felt. 

I drag the tool at an angle over the tag and create streaks of ink.

Once the whole tag is covered I reapply the colours on the blending tool and drag them over the tag in the other direction...

This creates the plaid effect....

This is a plain horizontal pattern. 

I like to do diagonal ones too, just to get some variety.

And this is how that looks like when finished. The possibilities are endless. It looks amazing in pastel colours aswel. 

It is so easy to do and quite addictive... :-)

For some detail you can draw some lines with a sharpie. Here I added a simple gold line.

Just give it a whirl, it is so fun and it gives you instant backgrounds. Just add embellishments or stamp over it.

Thank you for visiting. Take care and keep your craft on ;-)

Frederique

xxx

masking tutorial

I was blown away by the reactions about a tag I made using only stamps and masks. People kept asking how I do it. So to explain it step by step with the visual aid of pictures, I will try and tell you.

I start out with a blank card or tag. In this case I use a manila tag. I have two images I want to stamp and mask, and I have the background stamp. When masking you basically have to work backwards. The stamp you want in the foreground has to be stamped first.

I inked my image and stamp it on my tag.

And I stamp my second Image on my tag.

here you see both images that I want to keep on the front of the tag.

I have covered both images with the corresponding masks that I made when I got the stamps. I buy blank masking sheets, they are clear acetate sheets that are sticky on one side. I stamp on the non tacky side and then cut them out. This way you can use them over and over again.

I inked up my background stamp and stamp it over the masked off images.

Here you see that the mask gets inked and not the image underneath.

As I stamped with a pigment ink, my distress ink will be resisted. So I ink all over the tag to make the snowflake images pop. My two main images are still protected by the masks.

I have inked my whole tag and I love how the white Stazon ink resists the distress ink. Now it is time to reveal the result of the masking.....

Tadaaaaa.... the images are still clearly visible and on "top" of the background, eventhough they were stamped first. This is what I mean with working "backwards".

I stick my masks on the sheet that holds my cling mount stamps. The ones for wood mounted stamps I keep in a folder on an acetate sheet. That way they are all organised and ready to be used.

I inked the edges of the tag to give it some oompf and warmth and I coloured the boots and belt of Santa.And I gave his face a bit of colour.

I stamped the sentiment with embossing ink and heat embossed it in shiny black.

As the finishing touch I brushed some Wibk of Stella over the fur of the Santa Jacket and over the golden bells. I added a fluffy bow on top.

The tag is now done.

I hope this shows how I do my masking. If you have any questions, just ask. I am more than happy to explain. And if I don't know... I will find out ;-)

Have a great day and take care.

Keep your craft on.

Frederique

xxx