2018 #19 Tissue Paper: Gift Box with Hot Picks {by Jennie Atkinson}

2018 Topic 19: Tissue Paper

A gorgeous vintage box from Jennie, she has repurposed dress making patterns, as well as rye-cracker wrapping! You shall have to read to find out! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jennie (Live The Dream) with you today with a project for our current challenge that uses some old dress patterns.

During the 80s and 90s I made a lot of my own clothes, although nothing really fitted very well and it was more to do with not having shops here in Shetland than a love of dressmaking! My school Needlework report describes me as a "great plodder" ........ so there was little talent! I have a huge pile of now rather dated patterns so thought I would dig a few out for this current challenge to cover this small paper mache box. 

In hindsight I wished I had gone for some of the older patterns which were nice brown colour, but I did find that when I adhered them to the box the paper I did choose became quite translucent.

HP1801

I am using the new July Release Hot Picks HP1801 as I just knew there would be plenty of small areas in all of these stamps which would work for this project.These Hot Picks stamps are available exclusively from PaperArtsy stockists, see here for details.

I found some quite large areas on the dress patterns which had not been printed and used my stamps without a block to stamp here and there. I then tore pieces small enough to adhere to the box. I used Potting Soil Ranger Archival Ink as these pieces were going to be glued and needed a permanent ink.

Trouser patterns give the most area of unprinted paper! I stamped a largish piece to go inside the box.

As you can see once adhered to the box with Ranger Multi Medium (Matte),  the paper became translucent and took the colour of the paper mache box.

This was the base box. The inside was painted with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylic Eggshell - you can see my favourite line up behind !!!

I left everything to dry well overnight and then covered the lid and sides of the box with a crackle glaze. This took reasonably well, but I did highlight the cracks with a smearing of Potting Soil Ranger Archival Ink.

The sides of the box were embossed and I rubbed a little gold wax over the top but it wasn't easy to pick up the embossed areas and so the gold has gone into the wider crackle but hopefully it all adds to the vintage look!

I decorated the lid with some of my usual suspects. I am always on the lookout for different papers to stamp on and the white paper is in fact the wax paper that surrounds my breakfast rye crackers! 

An interesting experiment and given the pile of paper dress patterns I have the technique will no doubt be making more appearances in the future! I do like the way the paper is quite translucent when glued and this could be quite useful on different coloured and textured backgrounds - more experimentation required!

Jennie x

Blog: Live the Dream

To join our challenge and win a PaperArtsy £50 Voucher:

Simply make something arty relevant to the topic, and link your creation from any social URL (eg. Instagram, Pinterest, Blog Post etc) sharing your original make to this challenge page.

The current topic link Topic 19: Tissue Paper will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, 11th November 2018, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a PaperArtsy £50 voucher. Please make sure we can contact you as a prize winner - it helps if you share your contact info from the platform you opt to use.

Good Luck! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!