Oct 2025 - With 3 Things - Boxed Birds Nest {by Zoe Hillman}

Hi friends, 

It's Zoe Hillman aka igirlzoe with you for another 'With 3 Things' challenge post. 

For this feature on the PaperArtsy Blog 3 identical items are sent to 3 members of the PaperArtsy Blogging team. Typically we will receive a stamp, a stencil and a couple of Fresco Paints.

We have no clue what PaperArtsy HQ is going to send, the whole idea of this challenge is to do something crafty in our personal style with these 3 items. We can incorporate other PA products into the mix if we feel it is necessary.

So let's take a look at what I received from PA HQ ...

Today I've made a boxed birds nest using the Printed Tissue PT11 - Birds, Eclectica Stamp set EGL19 from Gwen Lafleur and Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics in Pumice and Coastal. Let's take a closer look...

To start, I glued the Birds Printed Tissue onto a piece of PaperArtsy Smoothy Heavyweight Cardstock, cut to fit inside my vignette box and using a brayer to smooth it as I glued. Sanding is a great way to remove the excess tissue and give a nice clean edge. I then brayered Mattint Ash onto the background and dried. Next I added some Infusions in Sleight Blue to my non stick craft mat, spritzed with water and picked it up with the background by gently taping into the wash. (Please forgive that my non stick craft mat is a hot mess, it's well used).

To finish the background I blended in some walnut stain Distress ink to the edges.

Adding Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics to my vignette box, I was so focussed on what I was doing and forgot to take photos so used a piece of vignette wood to show the step out process (below).

Working in layers and drying between each layer, I covered with a layer of Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Pumice. Next using a dry brush method, (adding paint to a dry brush and using kitchen paper to remove most of the paint), added a layer of Coastal. Finally, dry brushing French Roast over the top very lightly. You only want to highlight the wood grain with this layer and not cover the previous layers.

The Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics work really nicely on metal pieces. I covered a Tim Holtz idea-ology pull with Pumice using a sponge and then dry brushed on some Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic French Roast.

Next I added some idea-ology hardware heads to cover the pull handle holes and then glued to the top of my vignette box. I love the weathered finish of the Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics.

To create a birds nest for my vignette box, I took idea-ology tiny eggs and covered with my supplied Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics in Coastal and Pumice. Once dry I used a splatter brush to speckle the eggs with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic French Roast.

This gorgeous little birds nest was a treasure I picked up years ago and had been hoarding, it was perfect to add my eggs to, which were hot glued into place.

The birds nest was hot glued into the base of the vignette box with some nesting moss. I added green moss to the top and side also with hot glue.

Using the supplied Gwen Lafleur Eclectica stamp set EGL19, I stamped with Versafine Clair ink and watercoloured the images. Next I fussy cut and mounted onto my background using 3D foam to create layers and give some depth.

You can see the different depths of the stamped images here. I'm not going to lie, the flowers were a fussy cutting challenge, but worth it. All the stamps on this Gwen Lafleur Eclectica set are wonderful, but I'm particularly obsessed with the tape measure and book keeping ephemera stamps.

I have absolutely loved this challenge and had such fun creating my boxed birds nest. I hope you've enjoyed my post and it inspires you to create something with these fantastic products from PaperArtsy.

Thanks for stopping by

Zoe

Blog: igirlzoe

Instagram: igirlzoe