Artistic Inspirations Challenge #19 - Christmas Colors

Hello Crafters!

I am happy to announce to you that I have been excepted as a Design Team Member for Artistic Inspirations Challenge Blog.  We will be doing a lot of "anything goes" challenges and there will be plenty of themes to follow.  Our challenges will run weekly with Team A & Team B alternating.  This is a sister blog to ATC's with Attitude and Fat Pages with Attitude.  They are all great blogs.  ATC's are artistic trading cards and Fat Pages are 4x4 cards (just in case you didn't know).  I've been playing with this 4x4 size card and they can really be fun.  I hope you will check these blogs out and leave a comment for the DT.

 Anyway, here's my first project.

 The first thing I did was paint my paper mache box with the acrylic paint, outside, bottom and lid only.  Once dry I used Ranger 1 step crackle finish (clear).  After letting that dry for a few hours I heated it slightly to increase the cracking a bit (be really careful with that part or the glue will bubble up).  To age the box I went over all the cracks with brown ink then wiped off the excess.  The ink stays in the cracks and creates this subtle aged look.  I wanted to highlight the raised border on the sides so I brushed lightly with a gold leaf paint and it actually made the cracks stand out even more.  Unexpected joy.

The image I used for the box lid is "Beautiful Bow" from Robyn's Fetish, one of our sponsors this week at AI.  I haven't gotten my Spectrum Noir markers yet (Christmas from my hubby) so I used my good colored pencils and a blender pencil to color in the image.  I colored 2 of them for the layers but just did a flat coloring job on the underneath image since you don't see much of it anyway.  I sponged lightly with the brown ink to age this also and disguise my not so perfect cutting job (top image only).  I added the doily to the lid with Tombow liquid glue and smoothed it out with my fingers gluing down any loose edges I found.  I recommend you don't over do it with the glue in this stage as the doily is thin and the paint may show through.  Sponging the doily with a little brown ink toned down the bright white and helped camouflage the glued areas.  The shimmer you see is from my favorite Stampin' Up Champagne Mist paint.  I actually brushed it on this time because I wanted a little more color.  That took a few minutes to dry then I popped up both of the images and added clear lacquer from Hobby Craft.  Quickly I then added the red bling dots for the berries so the lacquer would hold them in place.  Use a pin to pop any bubbles.  Let dry overnight. Note: don't get anxious and touch the surface of the lacquer too soon!  I had to re-lacquer a couple spots twice because of my impatience.  God was giving me a lesson here!

 I just didn't have enough bling to satisfy myself so I put some large red bling dots around the perimeter of the lid and on the top corners with some very sticky glue dots.  I suppose, given more time, I could add some more lacquer just to make sure but they are holding on very well for now just the way they are.

 Well, there you go.  Be sure to stop over at Artistic Inspirations and check out the rest of the DT's projects and enter our challenge.  We would love to have you join us.

Challenges I entered:
No Matter Which Challenges-#5 ends 12/16

Jingle Belles Rock-ends12/21
Divas by Design-#65-use-some red-ends 12/17
Craft Us Crazy ends 12/19
Di's Digi Designs Challenge ends 12/21
Stamp Your Life-#1 ends 12/21
Crafty Boots Challenges ends 1/13
 Sara Hurley Chlg-#75-ends 12/30
Anything Goes-#82-ends 12/30
Great Impressions Stamps-ends 12/31

See you soon!