Treasure Chest

Hello everyone
How are you all doing? I hope you all are enjoying the festivities going on in India....Ganeshotsav is almost over and I cant wait for Navratri to begin...garba, dandya raas and awesome food. This is the my most favorite time of the year when festivals are being celebrated in India with so much energy and excitement.

I have got so engrossed in festivities that I just tend to ignore my work and work commitments and projects tend to near completion slowly and sometimes I just give myself due dates just to tell me to complete it. So today, I am posting a project on which I have been working on for almost 2 months......on and off. Because it was not on order, so I had the luxury to sideline it when I had other things or rush orders on my mind. I decided I had to give myself an ultimatum to take this project seriously......with so much festivities......I am like a child and get so engrossed.....I forget everything.....and I finally completed it on 2nd September....HIGH FIVE......

I got busy with Ganeshotsav and finally got sometime today to write a post about this beautiful project I have made for my friend. It was supposed to be her Belated Birthday gift......Well I am not so delayed after all....Just a delay of 2 months....lol. My BFF is a stationary hoarder and I feel if I rob her, my entire future generation can go without spending anything on stationary items....She has so many pencils, pens, erasers, colors, crayons, diaries and other stuff.....I am sure she doesn't even have a count of it and one day when I asked her to show me her hoarded gold......she had stuffed them in plastic bags and kept them someplace she couldn't locate. That is when I decided, she needed a treasure chest to store her stuff and I started making one for her from scratch.

 So, this treasure chest is not a small sized box.....its a 3 layered box which has lot of space....but I am sure not enough for her collection.....but I am sure it will be of some use to her. I have built this box from scratch.....It took me 2 days to figure out what I wanted to do and how I wanted it to be. I designed it myself....make some mistakes on the way and it helped me to build it better.
This box measures 17" x  12" x 14" ( length x breadth x  height) in dimensions. I have used sunboard and 1500 gms paper board which I have bought from Anupam Stationary stores. to make the box. The entire outer box is made using a sandwich of sunboard ans card board to obtain more durability and strength to the box. To make the inner partitions and flaps as well as small boxes and the other flap to attach the lock is made using the card board. The total weight of this box without anything inside it is 4 kgs.

 FIRST LAYER/SHELF

I have used red tacky tapes, white adhesive and silicon glue for all purposes for this box. Handmade paper is used to cover the box on the inside as well as outside. pattern paper from Eno greetings is used to add some decoration and to cover the boxes. I have done some stamping on this box as well...used Fiskars stamp to add more pattern and borders to this box. Stenciling is done using distress inks in watnut stain, vintage photo, hickory smoke, black soot, old paper and antique linen. I have used same colors on the top and bottom but to obtain a different appearance, I gave the lower part of box a coat of white gesso, and then stenciled over it. That is how the colors look different.

SECOND LAYER/SHELF

  

 

To embellish the box, I made some corners from black chipboard and gave it a coat of glossy accents to make it look shiny. Did some decoration with black satin ribbon, polka dotted paper tape and Brown gingham pattern paper tapes. Those little golden flowers were in my stash and i have used them to add more interest to the chest.

THIRD LAYER/SHELF

 

I have used chipboard letters and colored them using black pigment ink pad and then added a layer of glossy accents on it. To add more interest to it, I added some micro beads on them in bronze and golden color and mounted them on layers of black and white handmade paper. These were then mounted on the box using foam tape. More chunky glitter in black and silver is added to the box using some liquid adhesive.

I have filled this box is some gift from my side which include handmade diaries, decoupaged pencils and more things which are only for my BFF's eyes and ears......can't disclose. This chest has 4 hinges and 3 latches added to it as well as some brads to embellish the name board. All the latches and hinges are held by little screws.
The supplies used for this project are:

• 3 Full emperial sheet of card board (1500gsm) - Anupam stationary store
• 2 full emperial sheet of sunboard- anupam stationary store
• 4 Black full emperial handmade paper (Itsy Bitsy)
• 2 White full emperial handmade paper (Itsy Bitsy) 
• 2 Beige full emperial handmade paper (Itsy Bitsy)
• Chipboard sheets to make the boxes inside ( optional)
• Eno Greetings Pattern Paper ( The craft shop)
• 3 latches and hinges ( A1 craft store)
• Glossy accents (A1 craft store)
• Gingham and polka dotted paper tapes (Anupam stationary store)
• Micro beads, chunky glitter ( Itsy Bitsy)
• Brads ( Neha Koradia)
• Read tacky tape
• Fevicol
• Aleene's tacky glue
• Foam tape
• Black satin ribbon ( Iitsy Bitsy)
• Black chipboard for making corners
• Mdf butterfly buttons (A1 cratft)
• Fiskars stamps
• Distress inks and ink blending tool- Watnut stain, Vintage photo, Old paper, Antique linen, Hickory smoke, Black soot.
• Stencil ( Itsy Bitsy)
• Decoupage papr and glue for pencils ( optional)
• Diaries ( optional)
• Silicon Glue/ Glue gun ( Itsy Bitsy)
• Golden ribbon
• Eyelets (ItsyBitsy)
• Other papers( personal stash)

I even have a video to show the entire chest on youtube and I have added the link below for you all to see.

I am linking my project for this month's challenge at Ranganjali- Sparkly and shiny. I have added gold and bronze micro beads as well as some glitter and some golden shiny embellishments

 It has been a long post and very picture heavy....I hope you all liked it and please do leave comments if you do. Thank you all for reading my post and I hope you all have a good day.

Friend Shaker card

Hello everyone
Good to see you all. Its been really busy and crazy in my house this month. I am juggling between my work and my family and more work than family....and I am not able to blog so much. But anytime I find myself with couple of hours, I just run to my workstation and create something quickly and upload it here with some tutorials for you all.

Today I found fews hours free in the morning and I decided to turn a bling eye towards all the ongoing orders and dispatches and satisfy my creative urge. A few days back, I had got a free haul from ItsyBitsy and It has a stencil, silicon glue, glitter glue and a pigment inkpad in it. I wanted to try them for long and made many unsuccessful attempts. Today is the day when i finally got my hands on them and I made a card using the stencil, pigment pad and the silicon glue. I didn't get a chance to use the glitter glue but will make another project and use it.

Now to the card I have made. It is a shaker card with has the shaker elements inside a tag which I have mounted on the card. Making shaker cards is my thing and that combined with stenciling is like my new favorite technique. I love to stencil any opportunity I get.

Supplies:

1. White texture cardstock (220gsm)
2. Pink Cardstock (220gsm)
3. Chevron pattern paper in green and white from Eno Greetings
4. Sequins
5. Golden Micro beads ( Itsy Bitsy)
6. Green Satin ribbon ( Itsy Bitsy)
7. White Eyelet ( Itsy Bitsy)
8. Eyelet punch
9. Flat pearls in pink and white
10. Clear acetate sheet ( Itsy Bitsy)
11. Clear Stamp ( Kaisercraft- Best Friends)
12. Stencil ( Itsy Bitsy)
13. Black pigment inkpad ( Itsy Bitsy)
14. Distress inks ( Abandoned coral, spun sugar)
15. Ink blending tool
16. Score board
17. Foam mounting tape
18. Silicon glue ( Itsy Bitsy)
19. White adhesive or red tacky tape

Procedure:

• I started with making the base of my card using the textured white cardstock cut to standard A2 size( 5.5"by 4.25"). 

• Then, I took the pattern paper and adhered it to the card base in a offset manner using adhesive.
• Then for the shaker card, the tag is 3"by 3.5". I have cut the pink carstock and then using a stencil and distress inks, I created the background. I also cut some acetate sheet and front shaker window  frame to fit the tag. I have used silicon glue to attach acetate sheet to the shaker frame.

• I stamped the sentiment on the background using pigment Black inkpad, added sequins and gold microbeads and adhered the shaker frame using foam adhesive.

• Then I punched a hole and fixed a white eyelet on the tag. Used some green satin ribbon for the tag. I adhered the tag on the card using red tacky tape.

• Finished off the front, with some sequins and flat pearls using silicon adhesive.
• For the inside, I have added some pattern paper and stamped another sentiment from the same stamp set using pigment black ink.

That completes our card. I am putting my card up at Lulupu, Peek-a-boo, CWS , Happily Ever Crafter Giveaway, Ranganjali and Craft Stamper magazine.

Thank you all for reading my post and I hope you all liked it. Keep smiling and have a good day.