A hidden message..

Hello Crafty peeps…

Welcome to my page today. It’s the beginning of another month and I share with you my DT project for Rhedd’s Creative Spirit where the theme is always “Anything Goes” only altered art or mixed media, No cards please.

 I have an altered masculine box..actually a keep sake box for a man! This was a request from a friend to make something for her husband on their wedding anniversary. There is a hidden message with the box…well, it meant that all things needed to be kept in THIS  box and not all around the house, lol!

 I have made vintage  box and used the alphabet paper from TH lost and found paper pack. It had a lot of character and I decided to choose a contrasting color to go with it.

As always there is a surprise at the end. Keep watching!

Step1- I adhered the PP to the base of the box and chose apple green as the color to go with this. I ran a piece of black CS thru the dots embossing folder from Itsy Bitsy. I applied the green color to the textured CS,waited for some time and then rubbed off with a baby wipe and also sanded a bit to reveal the black color. I wanted the peeled paint kind of look and so this was an experiment on textured CS.

Step2- This green metal looking paper formed the hinges of the box corner and for the lid I used hearts embossing folder.  Before sealing the lid, I decided to bring in more grunge and texture and hence went with  faux leather. 

I misted a red hand made paper with glycerin and water and crushed it to break the fibers, repeated this a couple of time till it felt and looked like leather and ran some archival black ink on the raised areas. Voila, the faux leather was ready.

Step3- I made faux leather straps with black eyelets as the embellishment for the lid and also stamped in a vintage car from TH visual artistry set. 

Heat embossed the image and had it as the focal pint. Men and machine, I thought was a lovely combination…

Step4- resin hearts painted red and then a thick coat of black soot crackle paint reveled the red cracks. I used this textured heart as the closure embellishment beneath which is the Velcro dot which helps close the box snuggly. The sentiment “laughter and Love” is from kaiserKraft.

Step 5- The inside of the box is lined with complimenting PP. I have stenciled a lovely rose in apple green to keep the romantic element here!

 Some bottle caps painted in deep red gives character and sturdiness to the box!

That’s it…a lovely altered box for the man…the lady decided to keep a nice gift for him inside and I am told he LOVED the box more! 

Well, whether he got a hint of the hidden message, I don’t know but it is satisfying when you get a little complimentary words for your work from men!

 I made the inside a little more interesting with these little pull outs!

Ok…so how about the surprise…it was not easy to alter this box cos it is NOT a box actually! I mean it is not a regular box off the shelf…any guesses???

Most of us have it with us and many of us can’t do without this gadget though in all probabilities the box may not be with you!

Wait…here it is….

I played around with the construction of this packaging box and believe me, with all this treatment, it turned out to be one sturdy box!

Hope this prompts you to play along and do have a look at the wonderful works of my teamies here.

I would like to have this box enter the following challenges…
Altered Eclectics- AG
That Craft Place - AG mixed media
We Love To Create Craft- Anything creative/mixed media
All Sorts Ch Blog- Re cycle/Up cycle
Brown Sugar Ch Blog- make the sentiment BIG
That's Crafty ch Blog- Alphabet soup (have used alphabets PP)
Rubber Dance Ch blog- Celebration ( have used Feb 2015 color scheme)
Simon Monday Challenge- trio of colors(have used apple green, black and red acrylic colors)

Until my next creative journey,

Happy Crafting and re cycling.

Cheers.