Sail the Seas - a Nautical Exploding Box

I love companies that make papers with different sizes and co-ordinating extras as they make constructing projects much easier. Today I am sharing with you an exploding box which has a shaker element incorportaed into the lid of the box. For my make I have used Ocean Deep papers in 8 x 8 and Journal Extras.

I made my base from scratch using 12 x 12 cardstock scored at 4 and 8 inches on each side and then cut out the opposite corner pieces. My lid was constructed from a 6 inch square of card stock scored at 1" and then cut to make flaps. You could just as easily use a pre made base navy blue which makes a more sturdy lid and saves the effort of cutting, scoring and folding. Which ever base you choose to use the next step needs to be done before you put the lid together as you need to make a window to fit the shaker element into so that you can see into the box from above.

To do this I took my shaker element jolly roger porthole and used this to draw a circle in the centre of the box lid which I then cut out. I repeated this with 10cm squares of paper from the paper collection creating one for the outside and one for the inside of the box. Before securing the inside panel of paper I added a square of acetate to create my window.

I then layered up the two chipboard elements of my porthole before dusting both the acetate in the lid and the shaker box from the porthole set with an antistatic pad and then positioning my sequins and beads fromthe  christmas  and frosty shaker sets and some tiny dried shells and star fishfrom my stash over the acetate window. I then adhered the shaker box in place and the frame over that.

 

 

I then adhered strips of paper to the sides of the lid having distressed the edges first - the width of your strips needs to be 2mm less than the deph box base lid you are using. 

Having made my lid I then decorated the inside of my box using papers and journal extra elements combined with chipboards. I added a layer of distressed paper to the base of each square and then on the side panels added another layer approximately 5mm smaller than the first lifting this up with scraps of chipboard waste (cardboard box would work equally as well but is a little thicker.  I chose to decorate the side walls of the box with opposite panels having the same configuration. One set of side walls had the corner pocket from the journal extras pack added to create a pocket into which I tucked the date card fromthe journal extras pack and then two tags from the paper pad. The tags had natural hemp cord added. I added more paper elements and then chipboard elements that represented the sea - my coral chipboards are no longer in stock but several of the twig tagged sets in the shop could be substituted.

For the two remaining side panels I took the file folder tabbed piece from the journal extras set and folded it in half to create pages. I then layered paper elements as before to the front flap before adhering it to the base paper panels. I then added a chipboard sea horse.

For the central base of the box I added a mat of paper and then layered a second piece 1cm smaller with chipboard waste to the center of it thereby creating a stable base for my diornama. For this I used a 3D raft which comes with the net and life bouy placing this as shown.

Through out the box I used magic glue to secure everthing in place. I tucked in pieces of cheesecloth as I added my layers and finally added sequins and co-ordinating pastel hydrangea.

Finally I added some shabby ribbon - 045 and  065 and lace around the box lid.

Spread Your Wings

 Do you struggle to make some thing special for the men in your life - I know that I do so I thought it would be a good idea to make something a little different for them using some of the wonderful masculine papers that are in the 14 Craft Bar shop along side a fancy base. I chose the canvas zig zag pop up  card for my base as I felt the canvas base would add a luxurious feel to my make. For my decorations I chose the Craft O'Clock paper range Age of Gentlemen using a combination of the 6 x 6, journal extras, chipboard die cuts and elements fussy cut from the extras sheet. 

Decorating the zig zag card requires a little bit of creative cutting. - To create the side panels I cut a piece 0.5cm smaller in both dimensions than the panel and lined it up over the center piece so that I could mark the places to cut out the small flap creating the pieces that are shown below adhered into place. I chose to edge all of my paper pieces with Faded Jeans Distress Oxide as I felt this worked well but you could chose a different blue it you wanted to.

I then cut panels for each of the remaining pieces - both front and back of the card as shown in the next two photographs.

I then added tags and ephemera tickets as shown, adding coordinating shabby ribbon number 60 to the tags using a Larks Head Knott.

I then decorated the panels further with more elements from the journal extras and extras sheet along with some sentiments that were in my stash - you could use any thing you wanted to do these including stamping words/thoughts onto scraps of paper to get a similar effect.

I added more pieces to the back panels as shown below.

To decorate the cover of my album I adhered another piece of shabby ribbon to the middle of the front - Do not take it and add to the back panel as this will make it impossible to open the "card". Leave the tail to the right shorter than the one to the left which will ultimately wrap around the back so it can be tied at the side.

The ribbon was then covered with a layer of paper with a second matt 0.5cm adhered on top using foam tape so that chipboard elements could be tucked underneath at the sides top left and bottom right. A piece of background clocks was cut to size and adhered in place before two tags were added, another chipboard piece and my sentiment. For the back panel I added layers of paper and a pocket from the journal extras pack along with some more tags with shabby ribbons.

I hope you like this piece which I think would make a very special occasions card for the man in your life and encourage you to have a look at making cards that are different to the usual squares and rectangles we see on a day to day basis.

Catch a Moment mini album

MONDAYS WITH GILL

Many of you who read my blogs regularly will not know that I found the world of papercraft by scrapbooking memories for my children - I then found the joy in creating minibooks and albums instead of creating layouts on 12 x 12 sheets. Craft O'Clock allows me to create such books easily with its range of co-ordinating 12 x12, 8 x 8, 6 x 6 paper packs, journal packs and extra cut apart sheets. For my album "catch a moment" I have chosen warm breeze 12 x 12 collection and journal collection to decorate a 15 cm by 15 cm  premade base with 4 pages along with a co-ordinating collection of shabby ribbons which Agnieszka has kindly selected to go with papers and to make it super easy comes as a 14 Craft Bar collection complete with the 12 x 12 paper collection.

I covered all of the pages of the album with pieces cut from the 12 x 12 paper collection and then fussy cut out all of the elements in the journal collection before   assembling the envelopes and corner pockets adding pieces of lace to the edge of the corner pockets. I used a crop-o-dile to punch holes in the tag elements before adding ribbon.  I also collated some  floristry leaves chipboards, leaves and little birdie boho flowers and roses. I then set about decorating my pages.

To the inside cover I added a corner pocket filled with three tags. The corner was then decorated with embellishments as shown, the bingo card coming from the journal pack. On the opposite page I made a trifold flap, covered with papers and secured with ribbon.

The next page has the box envelope secured with more ribbon overlying some more of the fussy cut elements. I added a label to the envelope and a word from the journal pack. The companion page has deliberately been kept really simple with a piece of white card .5cm smaller than the base paper adhered in place and then topped with another piece of paper from the collection 0.5cm smaller than the white card. 

The next page has another trifold flap secured with ribbon and embellished with elements from the journal collection. 

The companion page has a pocket, ephemera tags and an envelope from the journal pack.

The final page has a file folder from the journal pack with the inside back cover kept plain.