Tea Box

Recently I joined a swap with the Marie Antoinette Mail Art Group, it was for a tea cup, your favorite tea and a small gift. Well, my swap partner received her goodies so now I can share what was inside the shipping box that I blogged about a few days ago.

I got a little carried away with my small gift but boy am I glad I did! The original idea was to make a box to put some tea in but never in my wildest art filled dreams was what came out of me imagined. Michael's is to blame! I was just wandering around when I found the ruffly ribbon (in the bead section) and I knew I had to have it. Then they had a giant thing of pearls on sale and I thought, well why not. The next thing that really got me was a tutorial about how to make backgrounds using paper clay and rubber stamps by Laura Carson over at Artfully Musing.

With all these fabulous element and a new to me technique I got started. My little sister helped me out a lot, I think I sent her about a billion pictures to make sure I was on the right track. I started by sanding and painting the entire box while it was drying I cut the ruffle ribbons to size and sewed on randomly various sized pearls. Between each section of ribbon (where the box turns) I glued a strip of pearls.

Once all the sides were done I moved onto the top. I had already started my paper clay background (it did take 3 days to dry) using my favorite swirl stamp. I painted it to match the box and filled in the swirls with some pink sparkeling H2O and bronze glitter. It looked a little flat still so I ended up dusting it with a bit of brown ink to age it slightly. The paper clay piece shrunk a bit more than I expected so after sanding down the sides I added a strip of pearl to fill in the gap between my paper clay piece and the edge of the box.

One of my favorite things that I did on this box was to create a ribbon to go around the lid's lip. Yep, you read that right, I made the ribbon, and you can purchase some in my Etsy Shop. The ribbon is tea died/stained and then various tea words were printed onto it. Between each word I sewed a pearl. That got wrapped around the entire lid, where the closure is I ended up hiding that they didn't quite meet right with a thin pink bow. I also used a bit of this ribbon on the top of the box.

To finish this off I added a string of pearls, some aged leaves and a bit of ribbon to a box topper, the flower I purchased at Michael's. The last detail is a chipboard spoon that I crackle painted.

I ended up filling the tea box with some blooming tea's, when you drop them in hot water they bloom like a flower, they are gorgeous! Later this week I will share the tea cup that I sent to my partner, which believe it or not, was in the pattern she is going to start collecting.