2020 #1 Love is in the Air: Valentines Gift Box with EKC {by Jenny Marples}

2020 Topic 1: Love is in the Air

 A treasure box indeed from Jenny using a new Eileen Hull die! How stunning dies it look in this vintage vibe colour combo?! Jenny seems to have made this in a way that cleverly melts modern hand-drawn stamps and vintage style stamps together so perfectly! I'm sure you will love unpicking all the layers she has created for this! An absolute delight!
~ Leandra

Hi everyone, it's Jenny Marples (Pushing The Right Buttons) and I'd like to share with you and idea for creating a Valentines Day Gift Box featuring the designs from one of Kay Carley's beautiful stamp sets ......

Launching this month, Eileen Hull has created a new die for cutting a lovely large gift box, perfect for covering with your favourite PaperArtsy paints, stamped images and more. I had lots of fun making painted paper pieces to be used in a collage format on all six sides of the box.

I've put together a tutorial to show you how this was created. Start by cutting the pieces needed to make the box using the die. You can cut a plaque as shown below but I ended up not using this piece.

Temporarily assemble the main body of the box (without glue) and mark which way is up on each side, top and bottom.

Following the arrows stick printed pages onto the sides, top and bottom of the box, and on the two scalloped lid opening pieces.

Apply a coat of White Fire Fresco Finish Metallic Paint over the printed paper.

Using a brayer or spatula apply patches of Seth Apter's new Heavy Cream Fresco Finish Chalk Paint over the top. This colour is as gorgeously creamy as its name suggests! At this point I assembled the box and scalloped lid piece using strong wet glue.

Now for some fun with colour; I used five of the six in the Soft Pink set of Fresco Finish Chalk Paints knowing with full confidence that they would work perfectly together. Add into this another of Seth Apter's new colours, Gold Rush, and you've got a really yummy palette to play with. I brayered different combinations onto leftover scraps of tea stained copier paper and pulled prints onto more of the same paper using a small Gel Plate.

With a bunch of backgrounds to play with I started by stamping one of the images from Kay Carley's stamp set repeatedly across one of them.

On another of the backgrounds I used the coordinating stencil PS163 to add a different repeating pattern.

Wanting to add some contrast to the papers I stamped the script image from ESC18 onto another of the backgrounds with permanent black ink.

On another background I stamped the larger heart from Kay's EKC33 set six times with permanent black ink. After adhering it to card I cut out each of these hearts.

Using another of the images from Kay's set I stamped the dotted string with Seth's Gold Rush Fresco Finish Chalk Paint onto some scraps of old book paper.

With the various backgrounds and other scraps assembled I began covering each side with torn pieces, overlapping them to create a design before mounting a large heart on each one. Seth teaches a clever technique of mark making to bring different pieces together and you will see the horizontal 'stitch lines' drawn on with permanent black pen. Included in each collage are pieces die cut from more of the background paper, bits of fabric and lace, and even segments of necklace chain. I also chopped up the central beaded section from the necklace and glued it onto the scalloped lid.  Finally I applied permanent brown ink to the edges and added words associated with the Valentines theme; as a suggestion you could stamp your own using Alison Bomber's Love Edition EAB09.

Here are some more photos of the finished box to show you how the sides and top looked when completed;

I hope you enjoyed seeing how this Valentines Day box came together and feel inspired to create some romantic collages of your own. With PaperArtsy's paints now in fabulous colour families it's easy to pick a set that you know will work well together leaving you free to play and create lots of coordinating backgrounds for stamping and stencilling on.

Thanks for joining me here today.
Jenny

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