Christmas Tin with {ELB Stamps by Designer Lin Brown}

Hi,  it's Lin here this evening to share a little Christmas gift idea with you. I'm decorating a metal pencil tin with Fresco Finish paint. I love how this paint sticks to just about everything, providing you prepare the surface of the substrate correctly. I chose a tin of pencils as my gift, I thought this would be perfect as a small gift for a teacher or anyone else that would appreciate a handmade gift. Alternatively, you could decorate a larger tin and fill it with home made cookies or sweeties.

This was a very inexpensive set of pencils which I think I bought from a pound shop a few years ago.

It's important to sand the tin and then remove all the dust.

Don't forget to sand the inside too. This tin of pencils came with an index card inside the tin which I kept as I thought it would be nice to decorate the inside of the tin too.

Using a small piece of Cut'n'Dry foam, I sponged an even coat of Snowflake Fresco on both the inside and outside of the tin. If you use a heat gun to dry the paint, remember that the tin will get very hot!

Next, I mixed some spray paints. I use 50/50 water and paint. It is important to put the water in the spray bottle first otherwise the paint will clog the spray mechanism. Add the paint slowly, shaking well between each addition of paint, this way, you will be sure the paint is thoroughly mixed. I mixed one bottle of Hint of Mint and one Evergreen. Both of these colours are from my Limited Edition set of Frescos.

I sprayed puddles of both colours onto the tin.

 Using the snowflake stamp from ELB10, I placed it in the wet puddle of Evergreen paint.....

ELB10,

and stamped it an a lighter area.

I repeated this process several times with the Evergreen and then did exactly the same thing with the Hint of Mint, this time stamping the image over a darker area. 

To add a little more detail to the tin, I sponged some Evergreen paint directly on to the stamp, to print darker and sharper images.

I also stamped some more snowflakes using both Hint of Mint and Snowflake.

At this point, I painted all the undecorated surfaces of the tin with Hint of Mint, using a small paint brush allowed me to get into all the tricky places. Once the paint was dry, I sponged on a layer of Matt Glaze to protect the paint. of course if you wanted some extra sparkle, you could use Metallic Glaze.

Now for the inside decoration. I painted over the index card with Hint of Mint and stamped the row of Christmas trees from ELB10 using Evergreen paint.

The image was looking a little sad and lost so I took a fine tipped black pen to outline all the trees. This made the image a little sharper. I also used some Snowflake paint to colour in one of the trees and add some extra details. The same with the Evergreen dots, I love this end of the paintbrush trick.

I used PS001, my spots background stencil to add a snowy background.

Using a baby wipe, I sponged a small amount of Evergreen around the edges to frame the picture.

A narrow braid really finishes off the edges.

 I made a little gift tag using a message from ELB11 as the finishing touch.

 ELB11

I hope this little project has inspired you to make a few of your Christmas gifts this year. I'm looking forward to seeing tins in all shapes and sizes.
Lin.

A huge thanks to Lin from all at PaperArtsy HQ for this gorgeous project, what a stunning way to present a gift... such a wonderful keepsake too. The puddling technique, and stamping into said puddles is so effective, a brilliant way to blend colours. 

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