Wednesday, April 21, 2010

My personal Sea


A new challenge blog has hit the scenes and if you haven't checked it out yet...well you should.
Alter it Monthly's first ever challenge is a Matchboxes.

I've never done a Matchbox and since i had a month to play with it I thought why not. Well it was harder to find matchboxes than one would think, but eventually I got some.
Paula's Kit Club frequently has wonderful cameo's in it. My favorite are some that came in the Something's Fishy kit but up until now I have not known what to do with them. This challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to feature one of them.

The Matchbox and the Cameo sat on my studio table taunting me for a bit. For some reason I just could not wrap my Brain around what to do with it. I took a trip over to Alter it Monthly and viewed some of the entries. Someone has cut an opening in the top of their matchbox and the light bulb went off in my head...finally.
I traced the cameo on the front and cut out the opening. Next I primed the box with some Gesso, trying to hide the red of the matchbox and get some grip so that my texture paste would stick. After that was dry I added the texture paste and smushed the Cameo into it. This stuff took forever to dry, I had to leave it overnight. I am not sure if it is because the Gesso didn't dry or if it had to do with the cardboard of the box.

I used Twinkling H2O's to paint the texture paste, 3 different shades of blue. Then I added glitter. When the Matchbox was open the bottom looked very blank so I colored it with the Twinkling H2O's also then added the transparency from Alpha Stamps finishing it off with a thin layer of glitter.

To complete the Matchbox I glued sequins onto the sides, I was trying to get it to look like exotic fish scales, not so sure I accomplished this. To me the top looked a bit plain so I pulled out another fabulous Paula's Kit club item (the blue fish) strung some fishing wire through it, attached sequins to the fishing wire and walla, a fish tail.

Not only am I glad that I did this project so that I could take part in my friends fabulous challenge blog but I also learned quite a bit.

Hope you enjoy!







8 comments:

Zuzu's Blog said...

Excellent work Caro... imaginative and pretty... love the tail on the fish with the sequins.. i know the mother of pearl look these sequins have in real life..

thank you loads for taking part.. and for actually going out looking for a matchbox

LME said...

This is beautiful :)

Nancy said...

Caroline - this is sooo pretty, I just love it!!

CCL said...

I LOVE this! You are sooo creative!

Andria said...

A wonderful idea, beautiful result, so much work!. I have an old pair of summer shoes with those exact sequins on, i'm inspired to go cut them up and salvage them now lol. I'm loving looking at all these inspirational projects.

Ginger said...

Thank you for taking part Caro and I love your match box. C x

Gillian .... said...

Caro I love the thought behind this matchbox, gives of a dreamy magical look, the combination of the H2o's and glitter are fab.

Moira said...

Wow a fab match box Caro, love it