plumrose



Sunday 6 December 2015

Altered Cigar box with Hand Painted Feather


 
 
This cigar box is about 10" X 8" and made of a wood altho I
needed to cover entirely in a wood grain paper, just to cover up all the cigar decos.
 
 
 
Here's my plan. Black background with a piece of vellum with clouds on it, hopefully the Artic, snow and floating ice comes to mind instead.  Some real birch bark, real bird feathers, some inking and ink stitching for that native feel

 
To match the birch bark I white washed the wood floor designer paper with Ranger's picket fence stain. Glued it on and added some vintage photo ink around the edges.
 

 
Inside too.

 
I thought I'd leave the bottom as is.

 
On top of the vellum I stenciled in some word script here and there. The customer who ordered this wanted a stormy feel so I white inked some swirly images and highlighted it with white perfect pearls. Some it hard to see.

 
On the backside of the vellum I used my finger to lightly ink up around some of the ice burgs, hopefully looking a little more like Artic waters.

 
Every now and then while walking the puppy I pick up some feathers found along the way.
I hand painted the polar bear with acrylic paint. It was a lot easier than I anticipated. I washed it before, but other than that - no prep and no sealant afterwards.
I wrapped the feathers and the stamens together with twine to incorporate some more native effects


 
The image in the moon was found on the internet, circle die cut and a white pen around the edge. 

I hand painted the paw print with black glossy accents onto more birch bark and oval cut by hand.
 
I will be a long time before I use vellum again. Boy it's hard to glue. It warps when anything wet touches it, and the glue is also visible. So I cut some tiny strips of black card stock and glued it overtop the edges of the vellum to hid the glue and pen stitched around the edges.
 
A little vintage photo around the edges ages.
Not sure how happy I am with how this turned out. I feel it needs more but not sure what.
 


 
 
 
Added a hand drawn arrow, a metal key and a metal medallion.

 
The box needed something to help pull the lid up so I used a Tim Holts photo pin, but filled the end with glossy accents, and a very wee tiny mini drop of antique linen ink to give it a bit of color rather than clear. But before I added the GA, I dropped a couple of wee tiny snowflakes into the ring. Two indian motive beads will go on the pin and once the GA is solid, I'll hammer it into the box lid.


I found some corners in my stash...whoohooo. Glued on using a dab of 'no more nails'.