Altered Bottles

 

I don't know about you but I am a hoarder of bottles and jars of interesting shapes and sizes and decided it was a time I made a dint in the pile so that I could fill my Candy Cart from a next blog post with something decorative but still functional. 

The process for all of these items is the same. Firstly you need to clean the jars throughly and degrease the outside with alcohol  - hand sanitizer with do the trick and I am sure we all have plenty of that at home. Once cleaned I then applied bonding primer and let it dry. You will find it is better to use two layers - paint with a brush the first layer, let dry thoroughly and then dabb on the second layer and dry again.

Once prepped the bottles can be altered in lots of ways. I knew that I wanted to add rice papers to most of the jars and they are definitely best applied over a pale surface so the true colour shows. So I took my jars and added co-ordinating paint from Pentart over the jars and once dry applied white crackle paste varrying the thickness to get different sized cracks and giving me the white surface to add the rice papers too. To adhere the rice papers I used decoupage glue - mod podge or watered down PVA will work too. Once the images had dried in place I added splatters of paint to co-ordinate with the images.

 The rice papers I used were everyday a fresh start for the purple flowers and mantel clock image.

For the pink flowers I used the bouquet of roses rice paper.

For the last jar I actually used  paper from the Rose Parfume paper pad wrapping it around the center of the jar and adding the words which were fussy cut out.

My issue with using jars and bottles is how to disguise the thread for the lid which I did not want to use. My way of solving this was to wind string around the tops and secure in place before adding co-ordinating shabby ribbons and then some silk flowers that went with the papers though I am thinking that the new fabric flowers would work just as well.

I do hope you have enojoyed reading this and it encourages you to use the products in your stash and upcycle some of the jars we all have instead of throwing them in the bin.

Harry Potter exploding box

 Since shop is closed I feel like I miss something. Especially when I have to make exploding box like this and I know that in the shop I can find perfect Harry Potter chipboards. But this time I had to make this box with stuff I had at home. Maybe it's good idea cause I used old papers and I made some space for the new ones when the shop will be finally open.

Winter Wonderland Photo Album

 Hi Loves!
I come with abit of a different album. Seeing this paper pack I knew this album will be a winter wonderland album. It's very soft and pastely. Decorated delicately to keep the softness.

Welcome Home sign

I love a handmade Christmas and this piece would make a wonderful gift for anyone at this special time of year or could be placed in the entrance hall to welcome people into your home. It is deceptively easy to make!

The make is created on a 12" deep canvas which was painted in a metallic brown colour so that the sides that would be visible blended into the natural tones of the products used. I took a single sheet of paper from the Home for the Holidays collection and carefully measured to create a frame the width of the canvas surround. The outer piece was then turned over and adhered to the frame and the central square piece placed into the recess of the canvas. 

I did spent a little time fussy cutting flowers and berries from the collectables set that goes with the papers before adding lots of natural elements. I knew I had to use lots of pine cones some of which had been gifted to me by Marisol when at the September retreat - she had specially gone up the mountains close to her home in Andorra to collect small ones and I wanted to really do them justice. I also added some smaller cones from the shop. 

 I placed the bigger pine cones in place at the bottom of the frame and then tucked in the fussy cut floral elements. Then I filled in gaps with moss before adding in the smaller cones and some red magnolia flowers.  To add more texture I tucked in Holly Leaves and added berries taken from the Twigs with Buds.

For the top corners I used the same elements but also added in some chipboard pieces - the exact one is no longer available but two of these broken up would work just as well. 

 Finally I added lots of snow paste but artic snow paste would give a similar effect and  I know that Agnes shared a reel on how to make your own with white primer paste mixed with 3D powder. Whilst the paste was wet I liberally sprinkled on some white glitter.