Graphic 45 French Country 4x4 Utility Box

Hello my crafting friends,

August is upon us and it’s time for the next exciting challenge at Eclectic Ellapu.  This month is a fan fav…wait for it…you guessed it…ANYTHING GOES!!!   It’s far too hot to be outside so grab the kids and head to your crafting sanctuary.  Let’s rocks some awesome projects to share an inspire others.   For my design team project, my inspiration came from a simple personal need.  I needed a pencil/pen container for my desk.   Now of course, I could just go right out and purchase one but why do that when I have everything I need to make one right here!   I started with a craft coloured DCWV Explosion Box that I got from Michaels awhile back.  I tore out the inside papers (it come with 1 layer), so that it was just the base of the box with the attached 4 sides.  I attached some binding strips I made out of craft paper to hold the box sides together and created the 4x4 box.  And yes, you know how I love building things from parts; I could have made the explosion box from scratch as well but why should I work that hard when I don’t have too (save that energy for another project).  I put the box lid away; I will use it for another project some other time.  Some ideas for the lid: a decorated little trinket/embellishment holder when you are working on a project and want to keep all those little items together and out of the way.  If you glue some thin silicone rubber on the sides and inside bottom you can have your very own hand-made hot glue gun holder, and if you are careful with paper placement and embellishments you could probably squeeze the bottom of the box down into the lid as its holder.  Let me warn you, it will be a tight squeeze and I say once it’s in there, it stays, that’s how tight the squeeze will be.  Sorry got a little off target, continuing on with my project info… I inked all the edges with Distress Ink Vintage Photo.  I used some left over scraps from my favorite, favorite, favorite, favorite paper Graphic 45’s French Country (can you tell it’s my favorite paper).  I used the paper for the inside and outside of the box.  I place a piece of acetate on the inside bottom of the box to eliminate the ink pen and pencil stains. I finished off the box corners by hot gluing some Chinese Braid to the edges.   Since this will be a heavy use utility box for me, I felt that minimal decorations for the outside of box would be best.  I just wanted something simple and cute to sit on my desk at work for my writing utensils.  I’ve seen some boxes that are really gorgeous with lace, metal embellishments, flowers, ribbons, the bottom feet doohickies (not sure what they are really called but they lift your box up so it’s not sitting directly on the surface).     Below I have shown the box as a decorated small table or mantel piece box.  You can use this little box for many things… a loose change, bill or stash money holder, etc.    Again, I plan to use mine for pens, pencils and highlighters on my desk at work.   Well, that is it for now, see you over at Eclectic Ellapu for the August “Anything Goes” challenge!!!

 

Joyce

 

 

Mardi Gras French Country Initials

Bonjour mon amis!  It's one of my favorite times of the year.  Mardi Gras season and Easter!!!  Love oh love me some Easter.  It seems everything old is new again, the tulips and daffodils bloom, and the trees begin to bud, it's just wonderful.  You can't help but to smile knowing the reason for the changes...Jesus of course!  I am so inspired by these events and the fact that I need to get some projects done, that I did some initials. And what better paper to do them with but...Graphic 45's French Country!  Talk about needing Jesus, I'm really going to need a double helping of Jesus when my French Country paper stash is done.  Since it's no longer in print, I've been making everything I can think of with the paper; so whenever I look around my craft studio and my house I will always see it.

As stated above the letters are covered with Graphic 45's  French Country Collection,  I used #4500638 "Montage" and on the back; I kept it plain and covered the letters with Graphic 45's An ABC Primer Collection #4500384 "Calico Kids".  A couple of the wonderful qualities about Graphic 45 paper is that you can mix and match styles and colour.  The Letters were a very light coloured wood.  I purchased them from JoAnn Fabric.  I love these chunky letters because the bottoms are shaved flat, no need for adding a base (unless you want to). When you sand the paper edges on them, you don't destroy the letter trying to get your paper flush with the edges.  I use stain on my letters instead of acrylic paint, it gives a more natural and polished look. For these letters, I used Tim Holtz distress stain Vintage Photo.  I used his distress ink to do the edges of the paper after I sanded it flush on to the letters (I used Mod-Podge to adhere the paper to the letters).  I don't like to cover up too much of the patterned paper, so I used minimal embellishments.  Sometimes less is better.  I used some wooden flourishes that I picked up at Michael's, the pearls are from JoAnn's in the bead isle.  They come in a small pack with pearlized Autumn colours like chocolate, sienna, forrest green, light green, tan, and terra cotta.  The Mardi Gras mask charms I got from Hobby Lobby.  They were silver, so I applied some gold Rub-n-Buff to bring them in-line with the colour scheme I wanted.  The feathers are from JoAnn's and the flowers are from two different Prima collections, I  picked those up at Hobby Lobby. All of the supplies I had in my craft studio for quite a while, I took something old and made something new.  I made the wooden embellishments at the bottom of the letters by covered up some wood chips with some 6x6 French Country paper pad scraps. Since they were so tiny, I just used my Tombo Mono liquid glue to adhere the paper to the wood chips, sanded the edges,  and inked them with Vintage Photo and viola! instant matching wooden embellishments.

I love how the letters came out, they look great on my shelf.   I was looking around for a challenge to enter and I found one at Altered Eclectics, this is a challenge blog run by Ellapu.  It's really nice because it's only for altered art and mixed media, NO cards, ATCs or the like.  The challenge runs until the end of the month, so you have plenty of time to join the fun.  I love altering things so this was right up my alley.   Thanks for stopping by, enjoy the pictures, and I hope to see you in the challenge!  Til' next time, Your Grace the Duchess (Joyce).

Laissez le bon temps rouler!

Heureux de mardi gras!

 

 



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