The Great Outdoors for Eileen Hull Designs

Posted by Jennie Atkinson September 22, 2020

The Great Outdoors for Eileen Hull Designs

Hello and welcome! to the first day of Autumn!

This month Eileen Hull's Inspiration and Educator teams are focusing on "The Great Outdoors" and there have been some amazingly inspirational projects showcased so far. You can find them all HERE.

This week it is the turn of the Educators and I have made a small botanical box using the lids from Eileen's Treasure Box Die. As a child I was always fascinated with the butterfly specimen boxes at our local Museum (Colchester Castle) but was always concerned that a butterfly had to die to create such a beautiful piece of work.

I can rest happy with my paper butterfly coloured with Distress Inks (Rusty Hinge and Fossilised Amber).

I have made little compartments on the left hand side of the box to house a little collection of botanical pieces ..... a little bottle with copper beads, a paper scroll and some autumn coloured flowers.

More Autumn specimens nestling in muslin.

And in the top corner words from a favorite John Keats' poem which I have copper embossed.

The little shelves add a nice bit of depth and I could have included more items.

I kept the outside of the box quite plain, using mixed media products to create a wooden worn look.

Here are the details of how it came together:

I made up two lids using Eileen's Treasure Box Die and some heavy matte board.

These got painted on the outside with PaperArtsy Toffee Fresco Finish Paint and before it dried I rubbed a little Copper in here and there.

When dried I added a layer of DecoArt Crackle Paint.

It had been my intention to leave the covers like this, but I wasn't very happy with the overall effect of the Crackle Paint once it had dried ......

So I painted it again (!) in Toffee and rubbed in Copper here and there.

It was worth it in the end! I love the way the crackle adds to worn look.

I added a little Black Soot Distress Ink here and added a resin frame painted in the same colours with a little gold wax added around the edges.

I used washi tape to make a hinge for the two lids.

To make the shelf dividers I used offcuts of board and the die to cut the small part of the lid .....

...... which is the perfect size to glue across the box.

I cut a second one to create the dividers below but cut off the flap. This flap was trimmed and added to the top of the area created by the dividers so I could glue it flat.

I found it easier to add my paper to the sides of the box before adding the little dividers. And again adding paper to the dividers before glueing them down makes it easier.

I have made a number of little boxes using this technique with the lids from the Treasure Box. They are really a perfect size for decorating with small treasured items. Details of my sewing box can be found HERE.