2018 #21 Matchbox Art: Family Advent with EKC {by Chris Dark}

 2018 Topic 21: Matchbox Art

Wow! This clearly was a labour of love for Chris, but what a lot of fun to be had filling up these little boxes with gifts ready for tiny fingers to enjoy at Christmas! ~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Chris Dark here with you today, and I'd like to share the matchbox Advent Calendar I've made. When I saw the topics for this quarter I was drawn to this one because of a Sizzix matchbox die I have which hadn't had much use, this was the perfect opportunity to work with it again. I pondered on whether to attach all the boxes together on top of each other and make a wrap around them but in the end I liked the idea of all the boxes stacked up on a big plate and searching through them all for each number. I've managed to do a little de-stash of my horde of scrapbook paper for the making of the boxes themselves which is always satisfying but in hindsight perhaps some heavier card for the box structures might have been better as they'll get a fair bit of handling from some tiny hands! 

I chose to do my stamping on top of each matchbox as an additional panel but of course the entire box could be stamped, stenciled and die cut afterwards. The toppers worked up beautifully using gelli plate prints created with Fresco Finish Chalk Acrylics in Tinned Peas, Snowflake, Cherry Red, Turquoise, Limelight, Caramel, Concrete,  Winter Green, Pewter and Gold and Kay's gorgeous Christmas Stamp set EKC23 and stencil PS120.

Eclectica Kay Carley Set 23 (EKC23)

PaperArtsy Stencil 120 (PS120)

The first print I made I couldn't bring myself to cut up so I kept this one and one other and made them into Christmas cards. The rest I enjoyed even more once they'd been cut down into the panels to fit the boxes. You really can't go wrong with this technique, if you don't like a print just brayer paint over, allow to dry and go again! My prints are made up as multiple layers on top of each other with different colours added and stamps and stencils together. There's lots of interest and layers in them and I love how the stenciling with the translucent fresco's gives the appearance of see through baubles as if they're made of glass.

For my first print, I've added the mask parts of the stencil and brayered paint over them. Many PaperArtsy stencils give you the positive and negative so you have more options with them.

The resulting print reveals the bauble shape as white from the underlying paper colour and the rest is the paint colour.

For this layer of the same print, I've used the stencil and brayered over the negative part to create some red baubles.

I've repeated the previous step of the process to create the green baubles.

Now there's some stamping with the snowflake stamps and there's that lovely border part of the stencil which I sponged in with white paint. I used the mask part of the stencil here to aid the stamping.

I cut down each print, edged them with distress ink and distressed the edges a bit with scissors.

The tops are attached to the boxes and I've embellished with glitter glue, pearls, sparkly pen, die cut glazed numbers and paper clipping Christmas words. After this a little ribbon is knotted and slotted through as a pull for the drawers.

I added all the extra embellishing in stages with the die cut numbers being the last element on all the boxes so that I didn't handle them too much after glazing with dimensional glue. I like that added bit of shine from the glossy accents, it was definitely worth doing.

This project was a labour of love but splitting up the tasks with die cutting over a few days, sticking together over a few nights, gel printing in a few sessions helped a lot. The rest I did a bit at a time when I had an hour or so to spend, I even did the ribbon knotting in my lunch hour at work so overall it didn't feel like a never ending task. Once I'd broken it down into bite size sessions I enjoyed the process and thought about the enjoyment we'd have when we start to open the drawers each day leading up to Christmas and especially this year as my little Grandson is old enough to know about chocolate! The matchboxes are bigger than regular matchboxes which means they'll hold more treats so we can all have something each day......those Christmas tree hanging chocolates and gold coins fit inside perfectly :D! I hope you'll join us in the challenge, there are so many ways to interpret the topic as you'll see from all the guest bloggers and their gorgeous projects.

Thanks for joining me tonight and happy weekend!

Blog: www.sketchingstamper.blogspot.co.uk
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christine.dark.7
Instgram: @chrisd999
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/cdark4163/

To join our challenge and win a £50 PaperArtsy 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 21: Matchbox Art will close 17:00 (London Time) Sunday, December 9th 2018, and the winner will be announced 2 hours later at 19:00.

All links go in the draw to win a PaperArtsy 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!

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A good time to stock up, or make your Xmas requests from family.