Painty Boxes...painty boxes....!

A group of four crafty friends decided to do a cigar box swap where we each altered a cigar box with a theme in mind chosen by our swapee! My swapee chose 'Vintage' as her theme which of course I was pleased with as I do like a bit of vintage! As I'd recently been stalking Andy Skinner on his blog http://andyskinnerorg.blogspot.co.uk/ I decided I wanted to have a play with some paint effects on the cigar box. I haven't done any paint effects before but thought I'd need some rust coloured paint ( I used burnt sienna), some verdigris coloured paint (dark turquoise), some gold and a crackle glaze which were all easily found in Hobbycraft for less than £8! First of all I painted the box completely black to cover the stickers on the cigar box and to create a nice matt surface to paint on. I did two thin layers of black and allowed each layer to dry in between- I hate waiting for paint to dry so I had a couple of other things on the go in the meantime! I bought a mini wooden artist doll- those jointed ones from The Works for £1.99 and found a little cardboard jewellery box to go inside the cigar box. I painted the artist doll black stippling the paint into the joints to coat it well and I painted the jewellery box inside and out with the rust coloured paint to make a rusted metal trunk! I allowed these items to dry before doing a second coat of paint.
 
  Going back to the cigar box I added some half pearls to the lid of the box as brads or rivets then painted the box with a couple of coats of gold paint inside and out and allowed to dry completely - this only takes 20 mins or so per coat so I went back to the artist doll and the trunk which were now dry! The artist doll was going to be verdigris, like tarnished copper so I lightly brushed on the dark turquoise paint all over the doll. When the doll was dry I then took a dry paint brush and a tiny amount of gold paint and lightly brushed gold paint here and there on the doll to give copper-like highlights. The doll was left to dry then I added some Tim Holtz gears using Glossy Accents to glue them on. Once these were dry I sealed the doll with a couple of thin coats of Crafter's Companion Spray and Shine. For the small rusted trunk I attached some half pearls to the lid and gave them a coat of burnt sienna so they looked like rivits in the lid. When the paint was dry I brushed some black lightly around all the edges of the box and when dry I brushed a tiny bit of silver paint over the edges too- this gave the impression of a steel box that had aged and rusted. Back again to the cigar box and I coated the top of the box with a thick coat of the crackle glaze and allowed to settle for about an hour until it was dry to the touch. After this I painted all over the outside of the box with the dark turquoise then had fun watching the crackles appear revealing the gold paint beneath! When the turquoise paint was dry I brushed black paint lightly on all the edges of the box for an aged look. I stamped onto the lid with a Tim Holtz stamp and added an ideaology metal frame with a sticker inside - I glued this on with Glossy Accents. To make the copper roses I used some Kaisercraft paper roses (large ones) and brushed Dark Turquoise paint onto them then when this was dry I added a light brushing of gold paint. I mixed a little tiny amount of black with some dark turquoise and added this into the folds of the rose to make it look old and more metallic. The leaves were some old ones on wire I found which I brushed over with gold paint. Roses and leaves were then stuck onto the lid with Glossy Accents. Some other items I added to the inside of the box were some wooden cotton reels which I aged with a bit of brown Distress Ink and wrapped some lace, ribbon and copper wire onto them. I had a Tim Holtz bottle or vials and usin a piece of foam I lightly dabbed some black, turquoise and gold paints on to make it look old and musty! I filled the bottle with glitter, glued in the cork then cut a little quicKutz tag with 'Faerie Dust' written on it! So that was my box finished. Essentially it's very simple the only faffy bit was waiting for the layers of paint to dry and that's only because I'm so impatient! I love making small, detailed items and had great fun with this project! I was very pleased with how my paint finishes turned out considering this was my first attempt- is was messy as you can see.... ...but it was a lovely, absorbing way to spend and evening! You don't have to do a WHOLE cigar box but maybe you could use one of these 'faux' techniques on a small project of your own? I'm thinking that it would be great as a background for a card! Remember there are plenty of Faux artists out there and Amazon has some cool books like Paper Transformed by the Artist Julia Andrus and Andy Skinner offers tutorials and online workshops! Have fun and happy crafting! love GlitteryKatie xx