It will be my step daughters birthday very soon and as far as crafting goes that can only mean one thing. It must have purple in the design and at least one butterfly. Whilst out shopping the other day I came across some plain boxes intended for use as a recipe file, I couldn't resist and bought some with the intention of decorating them. When thinking of a gift for Cheryl myself and hubby always struggle she isn't a great one for jewellery, if we give her money she ends up treating her children instead of herself and with four kids she doesn't tend to have the time to pamper herself. We decided that we would buy her a beautiful silk scarf in her favourite colours and package it in side the decorated box. We have yet to find the scarf but I am pleased to say the box is complete and once she removes the scarf she can keep the box for special keepsakes.
I used one of the plain recipe boxes gave it a couple of coats of white acrylic paint to stop the dark colour of the box showing through the papers I was going to use. I painted the inside of the box using pearlised acrylic paint that had been mixed with iridescent glitter to add some sparkle.
The box was then covered with pretty vintage style paper from hunky dory I used stripes for the main body of the box and spots for the lid. I has some pretty vintage peel off borders in my stash that I have had so long I can't remember where I bought them and I used these on the corners of the body of the box and around the top of the lid. I gave the whole thing a couple of coats of matt decoupage glaze and then left it for a couple of days to dry out completely.
The pretty vintage style lace was stuck around the body of the box using a hot glue gun. I wanted to keep the vintage feel so when I only had white pom-pom trim in my stash I dyed it using a weak solution of Ranger Distress ink in bundled sage. and then fastened this over the lace using hot glue again.
On top of the box I created a pretty flower arrangement using roses and gardenias from Wild Orchid crafts. I only had white gardenias in my stash so I dipped them in a weak solution of Ranger Distress ink - dusky concord. Pushed them back into shape and left them to dry on a pad of kitchen paper over a radiator, before using them. The antique seam binding again from Wild Orchid has been given a crinkle finish and has also been dyed using bundled sage distress ink to match the pom-pom trim. Once I had dipped the ribbon in the ink solution I screwed it up into a little ball and dried it the same way as the gardenias. Once dry and opened out it had a lovely crinkle effect, I tied it in a double bow and added it to the arrangement. The Pretty pins I make myself from various beads and recycled charity shop finds from my stash and I just happened to have these purple beads in my box when I went looking. The white net is another recycled item and started life as a bag full of chocolate coins at Christmas. I added a couple of feathers from my stash. The final touch was the obligatory butterfly I always include one on any gift for Cheryl as she adores butterflies. I used hot glue to fix it to the top of the arrangement so that it looks as if it has stopped for a rest on the flowers.
I am entering this into the following challenge
http://wildorchidchallenge.blogspot.co.uk/ - Purple and green
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