Everything is coming up roses

The Take a Word challenge this week was Hearts and Flowers.  I  don't usually 'do' cute, romantic things,  I'm more of a brights and bolds type of person.  However, the aim is to challenge myself so off I went into a brave new world!

Hearts and Flowers Box

 I had the idea to take the challenge literally but knew the weight of the flowers and the heart would not be suitable for paper, so I decided to alter a small wooden box.

I have been playing around with the flowers for a few days now until I arrived at a method that resulted in something that looked like a flower.  Eventually I used white card stock, die cut with two separate Sizzix dies and then applied a treatment of water and distress ink.

The heart I made from white polymer clay and imprinted with a floral stamp before baking and colouring with a pale pink paint with iridescent medium, working it well into the grooves.  I then over painted with a colour to match the flowers which turned out to be a kind of apricot although the ink was tattered rose (pink)

 I treated the box to various distress techniques, from crackle paint, distress ink, distressed ribbon etc

This is a view of the crackle paint by Viva, I really like the way it cracks.  I rubbed the cracks with distress ink to get the ink into the cracks before removing the ink from the surface.

I made a video of how I did this and have put it on my YouTube channel here. 

Box 533 is leaving the station!

I have been thinking for a while that I would like to make a YouTube video and decided that I would make a rusty box to show the rust technique.  This is my first video and I should have chosen something simpler!

The video was originally over 1.5 hours but with some editing and pruning (thanks Cpt Slow) it's now down to a manageable 11 minutes.  This is all completely spontaneous, and other than knowing I was making a rusty box, the rest of the design hadn't formed before I started (another lesson for next time)

Here is what I made:

Small Rusty Box No. 533

It really reminds me of part of a train :)
It is quite odd, seeing myself working for the first time.  Feel free to smile and laugh.

You can also view it on YouTube