Variations on a Theme - Window Boxes

You wait ages for a card, then two come along at once :-) I recently had to make cards for a couple getting married (congratulations April and Darren!) and a couple getting engaged (congratulations Abbi and Phil!) and thought it would be fun to adapt my window box design with a white and silver theme. Hope you like it!

..then I made another for one of Tom's nieces 18th birthday. It's amazing how different a card can look just for changing the colour scheme:

 

I just love the way that lady is peeping from the window (she is cut from a Graphic45 Birdsong paper pad in case you were wondering).

Entered for the following challenge:
Emma's Cards - Floral
Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge - make the cut
Ladybug Crafts August Challenge - something floral

Stamping Sensations Challenge - Wings & Things & A Touch Vintage

This month the Stamping Sensations team are challenging you to make a project which features wings and things and a little bit vintage. Our fabulous sponsor is CraftyDevilsPapercraft and they are offering a magnificent prize to the winner of a £35 gift voucher, so we would love to see lots of entries!

My good friends Lee and Kathy have given me quite a bit of gorgeous lace, but I had it stored in a couple of boxes and could never find the bit I wanted. Then I spied a plain wooden kitchen roll holder in a charity shop and thought it would make the ideal lace storage, once it was altered of course!

"Bespoke Lace Storage"

Here's what it looked like after I cleaned it, but before I started decorating...

"Charity Shop Bargain"

First of all, the knobs were all removed and the edges painted with black acrylic, then patterned papers were used to cover the wooden faces...

"Knobs removed and edges painted"

Some splodges of paint were added from distress stain bottles, along with some butterflies. The butterflies are stamped onto watercolour paper with coffee archival ink, then coloured in with distress markers and a detail water brush before cutting out, shaping and adhering with Pinflair.

"Box Mark 1"

Now, it should have been nearly finished at this point, but I decided I didn't like it! I removed the butterflies and repainted the whole thing using acrylic paints and my fingers (it was hot and I took the project outside and just got down right and dirty with the paints :-). Then I overstamped with coffee archival ink and added lots more butterflies. After it had dried, I wrapped all the longest lengths of lace around the spindle, securing each with a pin and filled the drawer with all the rest of the lace on wooden dolly pegs.

"Box Mark II"

Much better! Mixing distress paints with your fingers allows you to blend the colours and is lovely for giving soft backgrounds. I love the clouds. I also used some distress reinker to colour white paint because I only have a few distress paints and wanted more colours.

"Lots more butterflies and a diamond knob "

That gorgeous knob was another pressie from my bessie mate Lee aka craftyloops - thanks Lee!

Ingredients:

Crate Paper Maggie Holmes 12" x 12" paper pad

adhesives: PVA, glossy accents, pinflair

distress paints: Salty Ocean, Tattered Rose, Picket Fence

Bundled Sage reinker (used to colour the white acrylic paint)

Dayler Rowney Simply Acrylics: white, medium green, black

Cosmic Shimmer glue: teal (for the dots)

butterfly stamps from 7Gypsies, Graphic45 and Artemio

archival ink: Coffee

distress markers: worn lipstick, barn door, tea dye, tumbled glass, broken china, faded jeans, milled lavender, dusty concord, chipped sapphire, mustard seed, spiced marmalade, scattered straw, walnut stain

wooden kitchen roll holder from charity shop

diamond knob