I made this project for my friend Debbi's birthday today! I have been working on it for a while. First step was to paint the box, many coats of peach, copper and pearl. I took a class at Stampaway in 2011 where I learned this technique. The clayboard was a material I knew nothing about until this class. It is found in the artist section at Michael's. It comes in white and black I believe. The hopeful artist that I am stocked up on the materials for these babies right after the class and over a year later has finally finished my first one!! So the clayboard looks really nice colored with chalk inks as I have done here. I also purchased some clayboard inks which I believe will produce more vivid colors, but I have not tried them yet. You apply the chalk inks and immediately wipe away to soften the colors and blend. You can stamp on clayboard like I have done here with Staz-on ink. I used timber brown and the dark green on this project. The beauty of the clayboard is how it can be etched to expose the white core. I used an awl to etch and highlight the stamped images. The column came from Stampaway 2011. The lady stamp was purchased used at The Stamping Cottage in Bellevue, a wonderful new and used stamp store. The leaf stamp is SEI.
I used some found objects on the inside. The metal part of the sun was literally found on the sidewalk a few doors down. I found four of them, don't know what they were from but they are awesome! The feathers were found at the Forecastle Festival I recently attended in Louisville, KY. The lion was from my bead stash. I only had one, I don't know where it came from. The bottles are new from the Hobby Lobby line that copies the Tim Holtz stuff. The have the amber colored ones, Tim's collection does not. I filled the amber one with sage I collected years ago when I moved back from Seattle. All the "flowers/leafs" had fallen off the stems, so it was easy to collect in the vial. Still cleansing I am sure. The other is a little blingy glitter-magic for Debbi! I filled the sun with a little paper to complete it. There is also magic mesh inside the box and on top for the grassy garden.
I used a Prima Pebble on the front of the box.
I used a textured paper around foam for the "garden" box. Tacky tape wouldn't hold the ends, so I stuck some brads in there. The flowers are from years ago, a purchase from Big Lots. Most of this was put together with The Ultimate! Crafters Pick glue found at Michael's and suggested by the teacher of this class to get the best adhesion to the clayboard. I found it really to be the Ultimate! and glue an entire table full of broken objects I had lying around my studio. It dries pretty fast, I had to hold an awkward project for a few minutes and clear and the excess wipes clean. Great product!
I used Moonlight Smooch to highlight the latch and the crystal on top.