Art Colors My World Shadow Box tutorial

Hello friends! Did you have a good weekend! I went to a fun antique fair and found some really great stuff, such as a printer's tray. I've always wanted a printer's tray and it was the only one there, so I was lucky.

It is Monday and a new Simon Says Stamp Monday challenge is up. This week our theme is Butterfly Beauty. I love adding butterflies to my projects, since there are so many things you can do with them, it is easy to make them dimensional and they have lovely colours and shapes.

Today I made a shadow box using mainly products by Prima. It has been a long time since I worked with clay, and I was happy to use Prima's paper clay for this project and to make my own embellishments. There is a lot going on in this shadow box, which measures 6 x 6 in. There are also some metallic butterflies, pretty flowers and lots of texture. I took step photos.

For the butterflies, I used WOW's Butterfly Trio mould. Start by conditioning the clay briefly by kneading it. Press pieces of clay into the mould. Pop them out carefully.

I also made three chunky hearts from the clay and stamped them. The two on top were stamped with stamps from the Art Supplies set and the smallest one with the Texture Iron Orchid stamp. Leave to dry before painting, it took quite some time, because they are thick. The butterflies were much quicker. Drying time will depend on the climate where you live too.

Stamp Tim Holtz Plain Tissue Wrap with the Texture Iron Orchid stamp, using Jet Black ink. I also used this new tissue paper on my Because You have a Song canvas.

I used the largest of Prima's Square Tray set. Glue the tissue by applying one layer of gloss gel underneath and one on top. On the edges, I used tissue tape instead.

When dry, first give the box a thin coating of gesso (I forgot to take a photo of this step) and then paint with Distress Paints. I later added some more paint.

Paint the heart with Picked Raspberry and Spiced Marmalade. I was planning to rub black paint into the words, but didn't wait long enough and rubbed off quite a lot of the pink and orange too. I really liked the look and decided to keep my heart like that.

 Paint the butterflies with Distress Paint.

I mixed a little Pale Silver Mica Powder into gloss gel and painted the clay shapes and the box with it to give them a subtle shine.

 It is hard to capture on photo, but maybe you can see some of it here.

 Stamp the background with the same art definition stamp as used on the heart.

After gluing everything into the box, I added some of Finnabair's cool Rust Pastes, a little of all of them. Use a palette knife for a great random effect.

You can see the effect of the paste better here. Very cool stuff, it gives great texture.

I glued a butterfly to the heart and added a tiny bit of paste. As you can see, I also added some tissue tape to the background before gluing everything down. 

At the bottom of the box, I added a thicker layer of the pastes, using all three of them, to make it look like soil. Gold Mica flakes and Plum seed beads were sprinkled into the paste. 

The lovely flowers come from Spring Prism Floralia Relics and Artifacts and I used the whole pack since I really liked how they looked together. Grungy Butterflies were glued to the flowers. I shaped the wings a little and glued seed beads to their bodies.

I also added some seed beads to the flowers, and a tiny bit of rust paste.

At the other side of the box, there are two flower buds.

I used three of these pretty Grungy Butterflies by Finnabair, and also some of her new metallic Mini Stars.

The clay butterflies look great and are so easy to make with the moulds. The are a little fragile, so if you use them on a card, you might need to add some padding.

Here's another look at the rusty and golden soil. A piece of lace trimmings and twine were wrapped around the bottom.

These shadow boxes are great for dimensional projects. This was my last one in the pack of three, I used the other two for my Story Time and Owl in Winter Window projects. 

Art truly does colour my world and I could not imagine being without it. 

I hope you will join us in our Butterfly Beauty challenge. As every week, you have a chance to win a $50 gift voucher from Simon Says Stamp. You have until Monday 8am Ohio time. 1pm UK time, 2 pm CET to join in.

If you want to, follow Simon Says Stamp on Instagram, they post great stuff daily. 

If you use instagram add #sssmchallenge to your challenge entry uploads, so that we can see them on there too.

Thank you so much for stopping by today!

Happy crafting!

Anna-Karin

Supplies:

Prima Flowers SQUARE TRAY SET	Prima Flowers PAPER CLAY Iron Orchid	Prima Flowers ART SUPPLIES Iron Orchid	Prima Flowers TEXTURE Iron Orchid	Prima Flowers GRUNGY BUTTERFLIES Finnabair
Prima Flowers MINI STARS Finnabair	WOW Silicone Mold - BUTTERFLY TRIO MOULD	Prima Flowers SPRING PRISM FLORALIA Relics And Artifacts Flowers	Tim Holtz PLAIN TISSUE WRAP	Prima Flowers GOLD LEAF Art Ingredients Mica Flakes 961756
Prima PLUM Art Ingredients Glass Beads	Prima Flowers PALE SILVER Art Ingredients Mica Powder	Prima Flowers RUST PASTE Art Extravagance	Prima Flowers DOUBLE SIDED TEXTURE BRUSHES SET 2 Art Basics	Tim Holtz Idea-ology DAPPER DESIGN TAPE
Tim Holtz TISSUE TAPE SYMPHONY	Tim Holtz LACE Trimmings	Prima Flowers SOFT GEL IN GLOSS	Dina Wakley Ranger WHITE GESSO	Tim Holtz Distress Paint VICTORIAN VELVET Ranger TDD36494
Tim Holtz Distress Paint GROUND ESPRESSO	Tim Holtz Distress Paint SPUN SUGAR	Tim Holtz Distress Paint BLACK SOOT	Tim Holtz Distress Paint PICKED RASPBERRY	Tim Holtz Distress Paint AGED MAHOGANY
Tim Holtz DISTRESS SPRAYER Ranger	Ranger Inkssentials GLOSSY ACCENTS	Ranger Inkssentials Non Stick CRAFT SHEET	Dina Wakley Ranger PALETTE KNIFE	Hero Arts CLEAR ACRYLIC BLOCK 3 by 3

InLinkz.com