Decorated Nine Compartment Box

I  thought you might like to see the plywood box I decorated recently.... it's called a 9 compartment tea box and mine came from Kars. I've seen these plywood and paper mache boxes in numerous craft shops for awhile now and promised myself I'd have a go at decorating one. Well, I finally got round to it recently. So here it is.....  I'm going to use my box as a sewing box, hence the stamping designs and Steampunk dress-form. etc. The colours haven't come out too well on the photographs yet again but it's pastel blue, green and cream with a little brown distressing and Rub & Edge ( I think it's called that) at the edges of the box, the dress-form and cotton reels.

Here's the Tim Holtz dress-form in a little more detail.  Inked with Tim Holtz Distressed Ink then over stamped with script in brown.  The flower had the same treatment before rolling, shaping and glueing into place.  I embossed one of the hat pins but the other, the cream pearlescent leaf-shaped one, came from my stash, as did the little heart with the organza bow that I used to top off the lace.

A close up of the rose embellishment and hat pins.

Another embellishment I used for the top left-hand corner of the box was a couple of buttons and this gorgeous metal flower.  I used alcohol inks to give it a shabby chic look and popped a SU Antique brad into the centre with Glossy Accents.

The script in the background wasn't stamped directly onto the painted box but onto tissue paper and then glued into place. The paint was feathered over the edges of the tissue to soften them and blend them in. The safety pins and the other sewing images on the box were stamped directly onto the box itself.

This is a close up of the cotton reels.  These were inked with Distressed Inks and Rub & Edge before being wound with crotchet cotton which also got the distressed treatment. Again a couple of hat pins that were embossed to match the colour of my buttons.   The buttons themselves were a couple of plain white, flat plastic buttons that I triple embossed and stamped over to give them some texture. A little bit of lace finished off this bottom corner of the box lid

And finally this is a look inside the box.  The inside got the same paint treatment as the outside but without the stamping and tissue work.  I decided to line the bottom and lid with some pale blue/green K&C paper from my stash that I've had squirrelled away for some time now waiting for the right project to came along.  The colour match was perfect so out it came.  I added a little border to the base of the lid for interest.

I enjoyed making this box so much that I've decided to have another go.  It'll be the same 9 compartment box but as I'm going to make it as a card storage box it'll be with the inner compartments removed. I'll post the step by step details so you can have a go too.

Happy crafting.

Carol .  xx