Category: Gold

Spooky Box

9/20/2021

This whole project started with Halloween first of course, then I wanted to use up supplies I already had (also "of course). A library patron who I have mentioned here before donated these boxes for us to use and I thought this would be a great way to use them up! There are many ways to make this type of box! You can do whatever you’d like using so many different supplies and random pieces and parts you have at home. The below steps are how I made the box above but feel free to use it as a general example for your creative ideas. I really don't know if there's a "point" to this box... but... I don't care... it's pretty! So enjoy, and in the perfect amount of just 13 steps :)

Supplies:

BOX
PAPER
BOOK PAPER
EMBELLISHMENTS
WITCH PRINT
PAINT
TISSUE PAPER
FABRIC
SCISSORS
HOT GLUE GUN
LIQUID GLUE & BRUSH
PAINT BRUSH

1. To start with, I found a cool old postcard online that of course had a Halloween theme! I printed it off and glued it onto the box with Mod Podge (Just use a thin layer of glue and secure corners).

2. Next, I crumbled up tissue paper, then unraveled it (carefully). Pull off medium size pieces to fit around the postcard and glue them down with the liquid glue (paint some glue on and lightly tap the tissue paper into the glue so that it holds the crinkle look).

3. Once you cover the entire green space around the postcard and sides of the lid, paint all of the tissue paper/previous green space with black paint. (I like to lightly overlap onto the postcard so that it looks more realistic/gets rid of any straight lines)

4. Next, I glued on pieces of torn cardboard and added marbles almost for a crystal ball effect! Add a good pile of hot glue to press each marble into. Then add rings of glue around the marble to make sure it is held in place. Be sure to paint the glue with the black paint too to cover it up!

5. I added pieces of scrap fabric to a couple of places (I used sparkly velvet!). And added some ribbon in a few places along the sides.

6. I added a piece of jewelry here.

7. Now for the bottom, I ripped up book pages and crumpled them up. Then I unraveled them so they would still have the crinkly look and glued them to the outside of the bottom half of the box, even the bottom.

8. While the book pages are drying, paint the inside walls of the box black.

9. Go back to your book pages and “distress” them with paint by very very lightly brushing the corners and raised areas with paint.

10. Glue down your interior paper on the bottom and add ribbon and other embellishments.

11. Now for the lid! Paint the walls of the inside of the lid black and glue your other scrapbook paper down on the inside as well. I distressed it a little by adding a little paint!

12. Add other embellishments to wherever you would like!

13. Lastly, add your gold paint for the perfect finishing touch by again very very lightly brushing over raised areas! Finish up by adding whatever else you’d like!

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Acorn Specimen Frame

8/26/2019

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This is a pretty quick fall craft to spruce up your shelf space for the autumn weather or maybe a gift idea! The one I originally saw on Pinterest was very cute with bright fall colors. There are so many options with this type of craft, it's almost overwhelming. I thought about going with a subtle brown, tan, and white color combination at first. I thought it would be very elegant for Thanksgiving but somehow I ended up switching to more of a Halloween based theme with a distressed frame and distressed pages. The possibilities are endless but I hope you find one that you love!

Supplies:

Frame without glass
Acorns (real or fake)
Embellishments
Hot Glue Gun
Elmer's Glue or Mod Podge
Glitter, optional
Paintbrushes
Cardboard or back of picture frame
Decorative paper for background
Paint

1. Gather up all of your supplies so that you have them near and dear to your project space.

2. If you're like me, I had a few frames to choose from and was very stressed with all the options! Finally, I decided on something medium-sized and relatively simple in structure. I forgot to take a picture ahead of time, but I "distressed" my frame a bit by very lightly adding black in light strokes to make it seem old/give it some more depth to the frame.

3. The original post I saw for this project involved using cute polka dot scrapbook paper as a background. I was going to do this as well, but saw I had some old book pages lying around and thought that would be a much cooler effect! If you're using a piece of scrapbook paper make sure you glue/tape it on carefully, making sure there are no air bubbles forming on your background! For me, I added torn strips of book pages by gluing each piece one by one to the background. Keep adding and adding until your background is full.

4. While your background is setting/drying, this is a good time to decide what you're going to do with your acorns. I decided to paint mine a metallic gold. I used 3 "craft" acorns and 3 real acorns that I found in the woods just to try out the different types to see if there were any differences... there aren't (but if you use real ones make sure you "bake" them to get rid of all the little buggies in there!) You'll want to do a couple of coats.

There are many ways to do this. You could leave the acorns in their natural state, paint them, decorate them, wrap them with thread/yarn/twine, oooo!

5. Of course, I couldn't help myself... I had to add at least some glitter to this project! I chose half, and decorated 3 of the acorns with a gold glitter that went well with the gold paint. I did this by "painting" on Mod Podge and dipping it into the glitter jar. They were awfully hard to get back out of there but they looked real cute when they were done.

6. While my acorns were drying I also made the glued book pages look more distressed/eerie for a more Halloween look. I lightly brushed very little black and brown paint over the pages giving them that look which you can see in the following photo.

7. Lay out your acorns and see how you like them before you glue them. I used hot glue. Make sure you put enough on there and hold the acorn while it sets.

8. Lastly, I decided to add a little extra somethin' somethin' to the frame and hot glued a flower to the upper corner.

That's it, we're all done!

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Wildflower Painting

7/5/2019

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Who doesn't love wildflowers?! This is a fun, whimsical painting to do with friends during the spring or summer months, they'll love it!

Supplies:

Canvas/canvas board
Easel if desired
Acrylic paints (yellow, gold, green, black, white, blue, brown, fuchsia.. all the colors, just get all the colors!)
Sponges
Q-tips
Water cup
Paper towels
Paint brushes of various shapes (at least one pointy and one tiny one!)

1. Using a sponge, dab yellow and gold onto the canvas forming a marbled background. If preferred, let some of the white show. Accentuate gold at the edges for an authentic look.

3. Using a pointed brush, add grass stems randomly throughout the sponged background using various shades of green.

5. If desired, add tiny/light dabs of green into the white so that it looks more realistic as if some of the stems/grass were showing through.

7. Add some highlights to the blue by going over the petals and center lightly with white.

9. Next, create a variety of white daisy shapes throughout the foreground. Remember not all daisies are made the same! This may take a couple of coats to get a solid white layer.

11. For the last set of wildflowers, create “Red Clover” with fuchsia. Dab the paint into a rounded cluster with Q-tips. This may take a second coat to make it a nice solid layer.

13. Make the grass more realistic by using a pointy brush and sporadically adding “wisps” of grass over some of the flowers, seen below.

2. Rinse out sponge or use a new one for the grass background. Use 3 colors for grass: black, green, lighter green. Start with black, dabbing at the bottom for the deepest, shadowy parts. For each color you add, very lightly dab at the top to “fade”. Add green above the black, blending into the black as well. And lastly add the lighter green, blending into the previous colors.

4. Using a clean brush, paint a handful of “Queen Anne’s Lace” by dabbing white in elongated “UFO” shapes. Make sure to add a “bud butt” of green underneath some of them as if you were seeing the stem of the flower.

6. Next, create various shapes and sizes to represent blue “Flax” flowers with a lighter blue paint. Be sure to make them different from one another. Keep in mind, ones in the foreground will usually be larger than the background.

8. If desired, go back over the white with a little bit of blue with a skinny brush so that the white isn’t so stark. This also gives the flowers some more dimension.

10. I don’t particularly like how I did my daisies so feel free to do them however you wish!I added an orange center, rounding the top to make some look more realistic. I lightly brushed brown throughout giving the petals and added a tiny dusting of black in some areas as well. Again, as with the “Queen Anne’s Lace” add a “bud butt” to some of the daisies as if you could see underneath it.

12. Next, add a bit of black and white very lightly to the flower for some dimension. You could also use the green from the grass before, anything to give it a dark depth in between the fuchsia. Can be done with the Q-tip as well.

14. After adding some more grass in, it’s time for the really messy part!

If you don’t want bits of paint on you or possibly your clothes, you should probably avoid this step or work extremely slow and careful!

Using white paint, mix in a few drops of water to make the paint more fluid. Dab your brush into this new mixture and hold it over the painting. LIGHTLY hit/flick the paintbrush with your opposite hand, moving throughout the painting until satisfied. All done!

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Spooky Box

Acorn Specimen Frame

Wildflower Painting

Rebecca Myers

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