Storage

- MONDAYS WITH GILL -

I am sure that I can not be alone in needing items that help solve storage problems and yes whilst it is more than possible to buy them pre made creating your own allows you to customise things to your own taste. The 14 Craft Bar store now has a wonderful selection of napkins and rice papers suitable for decoupage and is well worth checking out. For this piece I chose a Stamperia Rice Paper as it comes in a whopping A3 size.

The base of my project is a plywood kit - as is frequently the case it came with no instructions so I have prepared a step by step on how I put mine together. I always lay out my pieces first so I know what bit goes where. I started with the four pieces for the drawer.

Having made the draw I set it aside to dry thoroughly and laid out the pieces for the main body of the storage piece.

Before sticking these pieces together I added the central part by adhering the side panels and shelf in place.

The right hand part of the organiser is divided into two and this is created by adding an extra panel and then the end piece.

Finally the end piece on the opposite side was attatched along with the two front panels.

For those of you who attended the retreat last September you will know that I had a very large quantity of Stamperia pink Crackle paint left over and so I decide I would paint my entire piece with this before adhering parts of the rice paper over the key areas. The vintage shades of the rice paper didn't work so well with the pink which I then altered by rubbing over gold paste in a copper shade all over the piece - this filled in all of the crackles but gave more coverage than I wanted. I then lifted off some of the gold paste which is an oil based product using white spirit - if you do this last stage for your safety please work in a well ventilated room. This gave the whole piece a cohesive appearance and now all I need to do is decide what I am going to store in it. 

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