Welcome Back Liz Borer Project #1 Blue Floral Box ....

"Hi there, Elizabeth here again. This is my last blog week and I am feeling rather sad about it! However I have really enjoyed the experience and I hope that you have enjoyed my projects as much as I have enjoyed making them. I must say many thanks to Leandra for all her support and for putting up with my silly questions; and to Gillian for all her work too. 

For these final projects I have decided that it is far to close to Christmas to start on new Christmassy projects so I have made things that could be made as presents for any time of the year. I have also given in to my love of flowers and things pretty and have made pretty items. I love all the PaperArtsy stamps but my style tends not to be ‘grungy ‘ – so to all you people out there who don’t always do ‘grungy ‘ and to all those who do – I’d like to show you PaperArtsy when it is pretty!"

I’m not sure how this box became so very blue but I feel that just using an almost monochrome palette can look quite stylish. Paint the outside of the box with Nougat and the inside of the box with a mixture of Nougat and Sky. (I always keep a bit of any base colours that I have mixed because I often need the colour again later on or I need to touch up a mess). Mix Irish Cream and Jo Sonjas Magic mix that I have mentioned before and roughly paint this over one side. Spread crumpled cling film over the paint, press down and then peel off. Dry the paint and repeat for the other sides.

Repeat the cling film effect using the pale blue mix that was used for the inside of the box.                                                                                                           

I then randomly stamped swirls from HP1007 and HP1005 all over the sides of the box. I didn’t want them to be too bright so I used a second generation stamp (ink the stamp then stamp onto spare paper before stamping onto the project so that the image is quite pale) and Archival Ink Cornflower Blue.   

         HP1005         

               HP1007     

           

I repeated the random stamping in exactly the same way using the dots from HP1204 and Archival Ink Blue Violet. 

HP1204

                                                   

And again I repeated with some script stamping using Versafine Vintage Sepia and MINI 61                 

Now I wanted something brighter so I used the CornflowerBlue Ink again without stamping off some ink first (ie the first generation image). I used the Daisy stamp from HP1204 and started by stamping one or two daisies on to the sides of the box. However I wanted to group several daisies together so I made some masks so that I could extra daisies. Each side of the box has the daisies in different positions.

I didn’t want to add too much in the way of embellishments because I felt it would detract from the background  - so I made some metal flowers. Firstly I die cut flowers using PaperArtsy Dies from gold and ivory metal ( if you haven’t got ivory use silver ). Next I put all the flowers through various embossing folders (use any you have).

I coloured the flowers using Alcohol Inks (a mix of Eggplant, Denim blue, Stream and Mushroom) all over both sides. I found that the darker colours used sparingly worked best on the gold. 

NB. if you are using coloured metal (anything that is not silver) the alcohol ink will remove the paint from the raised sections if you swipe with the ink-handle, so bear this in mind - it can be a good thing!

To give the flowers some shape use a ball tool to emboss a center and then cut down towards the centers and bend the petals to give them shape. Stick three layers of different sized petals together and add a pearl in the center. Attach to the sides of the box. 

I had some small metal feet which I painted with a mix of Baltic Blue and Inky Pool. I then rubbed some Treasure Gold over the paint.

I felt that the inside of the box looked rather neglected, so I drew a template of the handle so that I could cut out some card and line the inside. I then painted two sheets of card with the pale blue mix that I had painted the inside of the box and stamped all over this in the same way that I had done the outside.(Omitting the Daisies). I cut the card to size and stuck it into the box.

Finally I rubbed Treasure Gold along all the edges of the box and stuck gold lace around the top edge. I have taken a few pictures of the finished box .

I hope you enjoyed this project and I will be back tomorrow.

Leandra Says: That's a handy box! I am amazed how those new archival inks can look like different coloured ink pads from first to second generation stamped image! Kind of like a 2 in 1 deal! You are right, this would make a fabulous gift, any time of year!

Gillian Says: The mix of layered stamping, the beautiful flowers and the cool blue hues look stunning Liz. Can't wait to see what your finale week has in store for us.

If you can find 5 minutes at this very busy time of year to play along with Liz's techniques, then do link up your creativity here, and go in the draw to win some PA stamps of your choice!