Carte Blanche in a Box!

Evening!  Tis that time of the month again when it is my turn to share on the Creative Carte Blanche blog.  This month the theme is "Alter a Cigar Box".  Ooh, did someone say alter?  Whooothooot!  I loves altering stuff!  To see more details on the challenge and where to upload, CLICK HERE and you will be transported on the back of a giant umbrella to the Carte Blanche blog.

So when I heard the theme was going to be altering a cigar box, I got very excited indeedily and headed off to the Bay of E (other auction sites are available!) and started a bidding war on this ratty old box.  I spent hours, poised, ready for the auction to end and, waiting there, finger hovering over the "place bid" button, coiled like a spring knowing that at any second I could lose out and be outbidded....  Ok, ok, I went on eBay, put Cigar Box into the search engine, placed a bid on the cheapest I could find and won it... but it did sound exciting didn't it? 

Once I got my new purchase (which, btw, stinks like a poke of devils and is rather mildewy) I decided that I was going to pretty it up using the gorgeous Birds of Paradise paper collection from ScrapBerry's.  I love the designs and colours of these papers, just perfect to brighten up my shabby old cigar box.
 

 I made some roses using the papers and Tattered Florals die.  Next I layered the papers onto the box lid and sides, shabbying them up a bit with an edge distresser and some Vintage Photo Distress Ink and ensuring I didn't cover right to the edges as I wanted the original edges of the box still showing - to me it just reminds me what the base is and how old it is too!

In the paper collection is a sheet of birds ready to cut out and a sheet of sentiments... so I picked the ones I wanted, cut the birdy out, edged with Vintage Photo and then curled him with my fingers to get some shape into him, the sentiment had the same treatment as the papers so it matches in nicely.  Once I had the bits and bobs all done, I glued them to the box and added a few ScrapBerry's embellies to finish and made some ickle footsies for the box by gluing bingo counters together and colouring with ink and Treasure Gold.

Apologies for not blogging for the last four weeks.  Things have been, well, how can I say this, pretty chuffing awful here at home since I last blogged...  Grim's life has, yet again, sadly been turned upside down in the course of his duties at work...  so real life has taken priority. However, thanks for all your lovely comments and messages and apologies for being absent... normal service will resume sometime soon hopefully but in the meantime, both of us do really appreciate all your kind thoughts that you have sent our way.  Thanks for looking and have a grand weekend.

TTFN

Hels x