Beachy and Botanical Altered Cigar Box

I wanted something special to hold the earring and bracelet sets I shared in my previous post.

Not long ago, Mr. Chocolate came home with several empty cigar boxes for me ( and came home with MORE again this week!)  I grabbed one of them and got to work.

For this project you will need:

• Cigar or wood box to alter
• Paint ( I used Ceramcoat Paradise and Martha Stewart Wedding Cake)
• Decorative papers (I used a piece of scrapbook paper and some washi paper I collect but rarely ever use)
• Embellishments (I used botanical rub ons by K&Co, postage themed tag stickers, self adhesive copper frame, and coordinating washi tape)
• Mod Podge
• Clear drying dimensional glue

I started by painting the edges of my box with the beachy blue ( Paradise). I didn't sand or remove any of the paper that's on top of the wood. I liked the texture. Just painted right over it.

After that was dry, I dry brushed it with the white paint. I was going for a weathered beachy feel.

I measured my scrapbook paper ( top, bottom, and inside lid) and the washi paper ( sides) and then applied them to the box with Mod Podge. Added scraps of the washi paper to the corners of the top and then added the postal tag stickers and botanical rub-ons.

For the focal point of my box, I used the brochure from the hotel owned by the recipients. Placed an adhesive copper frame over the section I wanted to feature and added some super glue to get it really good and stuck. Trimmed using an XActo knife and filled with clear dimensional adhesive to give it a 3-D  look.

Ooops I got a bubble in there but oh well. If you catch those before your glue is dry, you can pop them with a pin. Once the glue was dry, I superglued it to the top of the box.

I finished up the box by applying the same scrapbook paper to the inside of the lid, added more washi tape and a couple more of the rub ons.

The owners of the hotel are avid gardeners so I thought beachy and  botanical worked out.

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Create Craft Love Keep Calm and Link Up #36

Kraft and Yellow Sympathy Card

Unfortunately, Sympathy cards are a fact of life. I decided that they didn’t necessarily have to be bleak . It’s a fine line to bring some color into them and this muted palette of browns and yellows seemed to work.

My inspiration for this color combo came from a dimensional sticker from the David Tutera Celebrate It card collection.

I pulled out a coordinating yellow paper from my stash, and used some more of the David Tutera pieces ( pre-embossed brown and tan panels) and some brown Colorbok rub-ons I’d picked up on clearance for $.97.

Covered a blank card with the yellow panel, applied the rub ons, mounted the brown and tan panels, applied a rub on to the Sympathy sticker, embellished with coordinating washi tape and finished with an embossed chip board bird from my stash. Waste not want not, I also used scraps from the embossed brown panel to decorate the card.

Upcycled Dry Erase Menu Board

My mom has been friends with the sweetest couple for many many years. During her recent surgery they were so supportive, caring, and helpful and I wanted to do a little something to say thanks.

They both love to cook and they trade off each week so I thought it would be fun to make them a dry erase menu board.

I started with an old frame and scrapbook paper I had on hand:

I cut out the papers to size and cut on panel in a decorative shape. Put them together as follows:

Cut the letters MENU from black vinyl on my Cricut Expression (poor thing has felt neglected since I’ve been using my Cameron, CoCo) using the Plantin Schoolbook font cart. I had some culinary themed rub-ons in my stash and couldn’t decide between utensils or wine themed because they like both but went with the utensils.

I put one set of the utensils in the lower right hand corner.

I wanted to shabby up the frame so grabbed a couple of paints from my paint stash. Ultimately ended up using just the light blue. Love these Martha paints…they stick to everything! Dry brushed the frame so some of the gold would still show through:

I have divided storage container where I keep alphabet stuff. I have a thing for alphabet stickers, tiles, brads, etc. and often pick them up on clearance for next to nothing, so I went to that and chose a “W” for their last name and glued it into a bottlecap.  I also remembered a metal stand I’d found at JoAnn’s for something like 90% off and knew would come in handy sometime.

Bon Apetit!

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Whipperberry Friday Flair

Be Still My Heart

I thought that was a more poetic title than “Galvanized Metal Heart” which is what this post is about.

Somewhere in my travels, I picked up these galvanized metal hearts but I know they had to be a steal deal because I bought 3 of them.
This started out like this:

To which I added some of these rub ons:

I remembered a gorgeous frame I downloaded from The Graphics Fairy and pictured it as the focal for this. I imported it into my graphics program and added the text “j’taime” and the number 20. We’re celebrating our 20th anniversary this year so I figured this could be up now for Valentine’s but since  it’s neutral,  it can stay up all year for our anniversary.

I printed the image out on Avery transparent label paper which actually looks like vellum. It was perfect with the rub ons…the white in them is almost the same opacity as the vellum paper. And I had to bling it up with some clear adhesive rhinestones.

Right now it’s hanging on our bedroom door. Haven’t decided if that’s its permanent home or not.

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One Buck Luck!

If you’re a wine drinker, you might be familiar with “Two Buck Chuck” which is a wine from Trader Joe’s. I’m not much of a wine drinker, but I love a good bargain. I love Dollar Tree, and the dollar section at Target, but my favorite of favorites is the dollar aisle at Michaels.  I epecially love it when they have things like “Moonlight Madness” coupons where you get 25% off EVERYTHING ( except clearance) so instead of $1 it’s $.75. Can’t beat that.

Here are some recent finds I haven’t yet made anything with but had to have since I can’t resist anything black and white:

Monogramed Packing Tape…cards, collage, who knows?! They have a whole new monogram collection but I was good and just bought the tape. So far!

This is “flocking powder” which I haven’t played with before but for $.75…

Rub ons! I love rub-ons , you can put them on everything. So of course I bought a bunch.

And look what I found at Dollar Tree:

It’s an extendable mini tripod. Hopefully perfect for taking better blog pictures!

Having Fun With Rub-Ons!

Thanks Meg!

Have you ever used them? So. Easy. And, addictive. I haven't always loved them because when I first tried them they were, to quote Julia Roberts character in "Pretty Woman" when she's trying to eat escargot: "Slippery little buggers".  But I think they've gotten loads better and they don't come off the backing stuff as easily or shift around so much. Any that I've used in the past couple of years have behaved.

I was at Michaels this weekend searching for some that I'd seen used at Jessica's blog "Craftily Ever After"  where she did a great makeover of a key rack. She also has some awesome downloadable Halloween art which she's been sweet enough to share. Go visit and follow her! She'd mentioned she got the rub-ons she used at Michaels. I was so bummed when the Michaels I was in had dismantled their $1 section ( oh yeah..they're a DOLLAR) but all was not lost, I found a really cute pack of DCWV rubons. Still, it was nagging at me ,so when I had to go to Costco last night, which was right next to another Michaels, well you can probably guess the rest but just in case....THEY HAD THEM!!! Yippee!

First I did this:

Which started out as a plain wooden trinket box that I painted cream, dry brushed with tan, Mod Podged some scrap sheet music pieces, applied some of the DCWV ( Die Cuts With a View) rub-ons. You can't tell from the pic but these rub-ons have some glitter to them. Here's a link to the ones I used: Mariposa collection

I was liking the finish on the box . I picked up this scrap piece of wood at a salvage place so I painted it the same way and will use it for a key rack (have to go get the hardware for it) and got to use some of the $1 rub-ons from Michaels. I think I bought 12 packages. Oops.

They have keys, birdcages, eyeglasses, watch / timepieces...see...you get why I bought 12 packs. They were a DOLLAR and there are an average of 8 images per pack!

And with the rest of my Mariposa DCWV rub-ons, 'cause I was still liking this paint finish, I did a frame:

 

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