Peacock box

I have a huge stash of wooden items to use up and so I decided to decorate a box for Sy's Christmas present - I had forgotten I hadn't blogged it!

I took all the hinges and clasp off the box and put them safe to one side.  Then I primed the box with gesso and painted with a teal paint from Cosmic Shimmer.  The stencilling, which isn't - ahem - quite perfect ...... never mind, was done with silver acrylic paint, I can't remember the brand of stencil.  It wasn't quite wide enough to go over the entire box, but I liked the borders at the side, just needed to find something to give them a 'finished' edge.  A strip - or four - of nailheads did the trick, making certain they would stick permanently by using cosmic shimmer glue on the integral adhesive strip.  A coat of varnish to protect it and left to dry  overnight.
Tine to re-assemble the box.  Now bear in mind that this was the Saturday morning before heading off to the crop where I was going to give the gift.  I dropped the last tiny screw on the floor.  Could I find it?  I had to find another blank box with silver screws and discovered that all of them except one had brass fittings LOL.  I have now bought a whole selection of tiny screws, in various finishes, to make sure that never happens again :-)

Geometric shapes - card challenge

Over at Kool Kitty, Nat has set the February prompt for the challenge.  This month it's geometric shapes - yay!
Here is my circle based card:

I used distress oxide inks through a Clarity stencil, in pink/purple/green combination, directly onto a card blank for a CAS card.  Then I stamped the SU sentiment and the Dali Art butterflies.  All went well until I removed the masking tape - it tore the card - eek!!
What to do?  I cut around the stencilled image to form a sash, laid it onto a new card blank, but then decided that it just looked too plain.  So I cut a trellis circle with a Tonic die and put it under the sash.  The corners of the card were rounded to echo the circular theme.
I actually like the way it has turned out much better than my original plan :-)

Birthday card: cherry tree on stencilled/stamped background

Although there is no official Blogtober this year, I am going to try and repeat my personal goal from last year - three (or more!) posts a week.
I started this card off with a stencilled circles background in purple.  Then I used a splatter stamp in green over some parts of the stencilling.  The cherry tree is from Lavinia Stamps and the sentiment is from Stampendous, both stamped in black over the background.

Nice simple card this one, quite quick to do and really effective.

Buy it - Try it: Distress Oxides and stencil birthday card

I have just come back from another amazing retreat at ATDML, but haven't managed to photograph anything I made yet!  The previous weekend was my monthly craft weekend, although the crop itself was cancelled, myself and Sy had a great couple of days crafting at the dining table :-)
I tried out some of the new Distress Oxide inks, made some backgrounds and played about with stencils I have just bought from Clarity Stamps.  One of the resulting images has made it onto a card, the rest will eventually, I'm sure....

The DiOx have a dense chalky finish when blended, lovely to stamp over, I used Cracked Pistachio, Broken China and Faded Jeans.  Then I over-stamped with another new purchase, a seedhead stamp from Woodware and some obligatory hide-the-ink-smudge butterflies :-)  The sentiment is from Visible Image.

Monochrome in Aqua

I was having a play around making an inky background .... didn't have much thought beyond wanting to use a stencil as part of that background.  This is the result:

I made a smooshy distress ink base and stencilled the dots.  Then I stamped the butterfly (SU) and masked before stamping the script (Darkroom Door?).  The swirl (Hero Arts) and tiny butterflies (Daliart) were next, then a sentiment (HobbyArt).
Sometimes it's just nice to play :-)