Take Flight with a Magpie!

Over at Country View Crafts, a great online supplier of craft goodies, the theme for their challenge this month is die-cuts and I should like to enter this wooden box. Click here to find out more about the Country View Crafts Challenge. I'd had this Ikea box for years just waiting to be decorated. Why not use it to create storage for my craft papers and collage sheets? I hope it will stimulate my imagination every time I take it down from the shelf! I painted a layer of Paper Artsy Baltic Blue, Crackle Glazed with Paper Artsy Crackle Glaze and then - when it was quite dry - painted over with Bora Bora, Mermaid and Beach-hut, blended. I used Grunge Paste through a Crafters' Workshop Harlequin stencil. The die-cuts on this side are a Spell-binders Frame, tickets, label and inner frame all cut from chipboard and decorated with Grunge Paste, Paper Artsy paints and Treasure Gold, White Fire. I used a variety of techniques with the Grunge Paste: stamping into it with script stamps,squeezing it through gauze and shaping it with a palette knife - generally experimented and enjoyed myself. I stamped the die-cut label with the words 'Take Flight' from a Paper Artsy 'Ink and the Dog' stamp, as I hope this is what my imagination will do when I use my box!

 The embossed, card butterflies are from the same stamp set and I wanted to give the impression of them ready to take flight from my creation. Please click on the photos to see clearer images; the silvery frame  has script stamped into the Grunge.

Here is a close up of one of my images (Paper Artsy, Lynne Perrella) stamped on the die cuts and painted with Frescos. I added Glossy Accents for further dimension

This view of my 'box of delights' shows a variety of die-cuts. A Tim Holtz tag die stamped with a Paper Artsy Mini of a pair of Pierrots; a Spell-binders label with a key-hole cut in the middle with a Tim Holtz tattered pine-cone rose peeping out and a Tim Holtz book-plate with a dictionary definition of the word 'tag' and two die-cuts of baubles that up until now I had only used on Christmas cards (!) stamped with clock-faces with little clock parts and gems added.

Here is a close-up of the back, showing script stamped in Snowflake Fresco paint and the butterflies. The tag is cut from chipboard, painted with Frescos and Treasure Gold White Fire and stamped with Black Archival Ink; it is edged with punched out paper lace painted with Mermaid and Blood Orange.

And here is the detail of the rose and tag label. The rose is die-cut from card painted on one side with Fresco Blood Orange and on the other Mermaid and the petals are tipped with Treasure Gold.

On the other side I used a die-cut frame as a stencil and pushed Grunge Paste through to create a textured frame.

 There are also Paper Artsy die-cut birds with Tim Holtz wings - a combination of two different die-cut birds painted with Frescos, textured with Grunge Paste and accented with Treasure Gold.

I added some Grunge Paste swirls, more butterflies and Grunge Paste harlequin stencils. Below is a detail from the front of the box of a die-cut frame, Grunge-pasted with a harlequin shaped gem at the centre.

Thank you, Country View Crafts for encouraging me to get out those die-cuts and create for myself a box of delights! It was such fun making it! And thank those of you who have stopped by Magpieheaven today. Please call again soon!