Island Creativity : Purple & Gold looks so extravagant ...

It's July the 15th, which means that there is a new challenge started over on the BleedingArt blog & what a line up of inspiration the Design Team have created for you all. Please join us this month, remember it's always 'Anything Goes' so you have free reign to create whatever you like. However, we say NO to scrapbook LO's, should these be entered, they will not be considered in the judging process!

This month I decided to alter a no longer needed iPhone box, it was just the right size to turn it into a collector's box, you know, all of those little treasures you accumulate in life, but never know what to do with them. My box contains little things such as, a tiny green plastic ring that my 30 something son have me as a toddler & a tiny pebble that my grandson had given me, because he said it looked like a shoe lol ..... Sentimental treasures that mean nothing to anyone else, but they are precious to me 😊

So, I started by removing any stickers & labels from the iphone box, then I roughed up all of the shiney surfaces with a strong energy board, but it can be done with a sanding block or sandpaper also. I do this to give some grip for the products that I will be applying to transform the box.

The next step was to coat the box with gesso, allowing it to dry completely. I wanted to give the idea of texture without actually using products to produce the effect. So, I painted the lid of the box with a nice purple acrylic paint, when dry I dry brushed some good metallic paint, quite randomly, to break up the plain colour & adhered a piece of string netting! By doing this, I have myself another colour to play with, when it came to adding embellishments & there are lots of them!

The next step was to gather a mixture of embellishments to dress my box lid, after a happy rummage through my various wellies boxes, I chose some resins, a few cogs, a bottle cap, some cognac coloured faux gems, some gauze & some yummy metal shapes. I placed them on the lid, which always takes me a while to get the look that I want. When, I was happy with my look, I began gluing them in place, I like to use a gel medium for this, because I know that it has a very strong bond.

Some of the pieces I painted before glueing them down, because of where they would be hard to get too, when other things were placed on top. The lovely metal pieces & the string net, I left unpainted, because I like the contrast between metal & coloured.

The big element in the middle of the box, is from a larger resin that I broke in half, it's the lower half of the Zuri Phoenix. It's good to play with your available embellishments etc. to see if they can be adapted to fit your projects, because I am making a conscious effort to use what I have, instead of keep buying all of the time. I know it's the same for most crafters, but I am rapidly running out of storage space 😉

Ok, so all of my embellishments are glued in place, once everything was completely dry, it is good to pick it up & look at it from all angles, by doing this you can see if you need a dab of paint anywhere or other little finishing touches. Sometimes, just the tiniest dab of paint can make everything work together.