Monday, 8 June 2009

Treasure chest or Pandora's box?

This started as a plain papier mache chest (bought at Hobby Craft). The first stage was to apply a primer, for which (rightly or wrongly) I used gesso. Once dry, I painted it with espresso acrylic ink. Tattered leather Glimmer Mist was then sponged on top. I ran a sheet of copper metal through my Cuttlebug (twice to cover the whole sheet) for the debossed section on the top. I embossed the lower section in the same way, but as it needed two strips to go all the way around I put them through the Cuttlebug together. All the metal was then antiqued using espresso acrylic ink. Once dry rust, ginger & mushroom alcohol inks were used to darken the metal. But ...... it didn't look quite complete, it needed a keyhole. I looked around in shops, but either they didn't have any or they were much too large. So, in the end it was made out of grungeboard - I cut a square, used my Cropodile to punch semi-circles off the corners and the top of the actual keyhole, and then lengthened this using my craft knife - once ready I covered it in Cosmic Shimmer antique copper UTEE (ultra thick embossing enamel) and the edges were touched up using my copper Krylon pen. Again, I antiqued it slightly with acrylic ink.

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