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I am fascinated by little stories encased in small boxes or tins, little vignettes or dioramas made on a miniature scale and enclosed in an improbable object. Do you know the sort of thing that I mean?  It is like a sneak peek into someone’s life or imagination but in miniature. I’m not sure what it is I love about them so much. It could be the spark of inspiration that they incite in me as I imagine the story that they depict or if it is the miniature world that they make. I just find them enthralling.

If you have seen any of my sardine tin art then you will have seen some of this obsession coming out. But I haven’t done one for a long old while and in fact the project I am sharing today was made way back in 2013! I am also sharing the step by step for this project today but the papers and stamps are a little out of date now, however, you can can easily swap them out for other stamps and papers if you do not have these exact ones in your stash.

What You Will Need:
Kaisercraft: Graffiti Texture Clear Stamp
WOW! Embossing Powders: Earthtone Mint; Earthtone Blueberry; Earthtone Paprika; Pearlescent Gold Satin Pearl
WOW! Embossing Pen
WOW! Melt-It!
Tsukineko VersaMark ink pad
Square Wood Shadow Box Frame 10cm x 10cm x 3.5cm (4″ x 4″ x 1 1/2″)
Prima Marketing Lifetime paper pad
Glass mini bottle
Seed beads
Craft Wire (1.02 mm / 18 gauge)
Pliers
Heat tool
Ranger Melting pot
Pie dish
Heat resistant spatula and tweezers
Golden Soft Gel Medium
Glue Stick
Doilies

To Decorate The Box

STEP 1: 

Cover the box with torn pieces of the patterned paper using gel medium and let the box dry. Then stamp the top left corner of the box with the VersaMark ink. 

STEP 2:

Sprinkle the Blueberry embossing powder over part of the stamping, catching the excess on spare paper.

STEP 3:

Repeat for the Paprika and Mint embossing powders until the stamping is covered with all three colours and heat set them. Then repeat for the bottom right hand corner and the inside of both corners.

STEP 4:

Add glue stick to the corners decorated with the embossing powder.

STEP 5:

Cover with Blueberry embossing powder.

STEP 6: 

Heat set the powder then repeat the process with the Mint embossing powder until you are happy with the coverage. Add glue stick over the edges of the box both inside and out and sprinkle with the Pearlescent Gold Satin Pearl embossing powder and heat set. Finish with two thin doilies, or one thick doily, stuck on the inside.

To Make The Bottle Vase And Flower

STEP 1:

Cut two circles from the designer paper and thread them onto wire. Use the pliers to bend the wire into a spiral in the centre of the circles.

STEP 2:

Add gel medium thinly over areas of the paper flower and under and over the top of the wire. Then dip the flower into the Blueberry powder, tap off the excess and dip into the Paprika. Tap off excess again and heat set.

STEP 3:

Bend two pieces of the wire into swirls and add random drops of gel medium. Dip the wire into the Mint powder, tap off the excess and heat set.

STEP 4:

Melt the Melt-It! with seed beads in a pie dish either in a melting pot if you have one or by holding it with a wooden clothes peg and melting the powder with a heat tool. If you have a melting pot stand the mini glass bottle in it and pour in the molten powder and beads from the pie dish. If you don’t have a melting pot pour the liquid embossing powder and beads into the bottle quickly and move directly onto Step 5.

You can also use the heat tool over the mouth of the bottle to help keep the powder molten as you pour.

STEP 5:

Add the flower and swirls to the molten powder in the bottle, if the bottle is in the melting pot then remove it with heat-resistant tools (it’s very hot!).

Let the bottle cool completely before bending the wires as needed and sticking it inside the box.

REMEMBER METAL, GLASS AND EMBOSSING POWDER CAN GET VERY HOT SO DON’T TOUCH IT! USE HEAT RESISTANT TOOLS AT ALL TIMES!

Here is a close up of one of the embossed corners:

I have a whole story behind this little vignette box but I don’t want to taint what your imagination comes up with, so I will keep my story to myself and give you the space to come up with your own story! But feel free to share your stories around this piece with me, I would love to hear them.

Have fun with it and if you want to see some of my other box vignettes then click on the pictures below:

Kim

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