Home Tweet Home - An Altered Box

Hey Peeps

Two posts in one day!!

I have altered a wooden box for the Objet D'Art challenge - the current theme is to ... er... alter a box!! LOL

Last year we decided to clear a patch that was really overgrown in the garden. We were in the middle of cutting down a mini pine tree and found a little nest on the floor, obviously it had fallen out as we were hacking away at the tree. In it was a teensy little blue egg that had already been hatched and as it was late into the season we figured that the birds had flown the nest. I couldn't bear to part with this little nest as it was so intricately made, woven using hair (yes, mine!!) wool and moss. So, the nest has been sitting in a saucer on the window sill since then and I have been determined to "do" something with it.




Hey presto, Jennie has the theme for altering a box. What better way to make use of all these new birdy images I have ... *coughs* ... er, bought (nawty Hels) than to make a little home for the nest.




In my stash, I also had a little birdy that came with a bunch of flowers, it has been hanging about for years and finally, he has a home to live in.




I used a basic wooden box, painting it with acylics, then doing the PVA crackle technique and then adding stamped images, Maya Road chip shapes and the newly aquired images which I cut out. The stamps are by Prima, Art Journey and Darkroom Door and the images are by Crafty Individuals and Oxford Impressions. The Maya Road Shapes and the Distress Inks I used to blend the images are from The Artistic Stamper.




For the title and the insert for the lid, I used some basic cream card and coloured it with Old Paper and Tattered Rose Distress Ink. Then I spritzed this with water and dried with a heat gun. Next, I used an old paint brush and Distress Re-Inkers in Old Paper, Tattered Rose and Weathered Wood to make a speckley background. I collected some ink onto the brush and then tapped it over my index finger so the ink fell in dots onto the card. Finally, spritzing this with water and heat drying again gave me the eggshell look I was after. I used a Fragment to cover the main sentiment inside the lid and used StudioG alpha's to make the title and the words on the lid too.




Oh, I nearly forgot....I added some German Scrap from PaperArtsy to the edge of the lid just to break it up a little and the jaggedy dots on the top of the box are from a plate from Art Journey....doesn't look like much of a stamp on it's own but it makes a fab background!




Thanks for a fabby challenge Jennie ... I love my new nest box and at least now the nest inside will be kept safe and sound.

Thanks for looking - I really wish I could take decent photo's as these don't pick up the colours that I used or the textures.....ho hum!

Hels xx