Meow-y Christmas box

A lovely pillow box 'wrapped' in a lace of glitter, tagged with an adorable kitty tangled in Christmas lights and a poinsettia makes a lovely gift on its own, even without the items hidden inside.

Challenges

Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Scrappy challenge: Anything But A Card
Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge: Gift It
Crafty Gals Corner: Critters
Fab 'n' Funky: Ribbon and/or Lace
Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge: Sentiment
Kraftin' Kimmie Stamps Wonderful Wednesday: Anything Goes
Penny's Paper Challenge: Anything Goes

Supplies

InLinkz.com

Putting It Together

The lace technique is one which I first saw done by Els of Elizabeth Craft Design. It's not a difficult technique but has really cool results. Each time I do it I think to myself, I need more lace. But, going to a fabric store has its own risks because I also have been known to sew a bit (not so much of late) and the siren song of costuming beckons.

To start, you need an adhesive sheet on cardstock. I first die cut the pillow box shape and then cut a piece of adhesive sheet to cover the area which isn't folded either to form the box or its side openings. I measured the area after I cut the box shape before cutting the adhesive sheet.

Any nylon lace will work with this technique. Mine happens to be black. I cut a piece larger than the adhesive area. You can reuse the lace with this technique over and over, I just misplaced the lace piece I've used before so had to cut a new one. Remove the release paper from the adhesive and apply the lace over the it. Burnish the lace on the adhesive real good. You will feel adhesive through the lace, this is a good thing.

Pour the first colour of microfine over the adhesive area. I usually cascade it over the lace. Then tap the back of the cardstock to knock off loose glitter. I usually pour and tap over a coffee filter so I can easily pour the extra back into the bottle. 

This technique is best used with microfine glitter such as the Silk Microfine glitter from Elizabeth Craft Designs. The microfine glitter adheres the best to the adhesive and gets into the nooks and crannies of the lace. Other powders and other sizes of glitter will not have the same results. I love the colours and feel of the ECD silk microfine glitter.

With a cheap dollar store make-up brush, sweep off loose glitter from the lace.

Using your finger, burnish the glitter into the adhesive. 

Pour the loose glitter back into the jar. This technique actually uses very little glitter each time. 

This is why I use a coffee filter, it folds up easy to create a funnel and, because they're so cheap, I feel no guilt when I toss one that's too mussed. I do, though, use a a dry Swiffer sheet on them and reuse them as much as I can.

Carefully remove the lace. I find the lace peels off quite easily, especially if I am using ECD adhesive sheets.

With the lace removed, you can see the lace pattern. The areas not covered by glitter are still sticky adhesive. Now we apply the second colour.

Going with the Christmas theme, I used red over the green on one side of the box (green over red on the other). Cascade the second colour, just like the first. Before doing a tap and brush, pour the loose glitter into your bottle. The tap and the brush can also remove some remaining loose glitter from the first colour and you don't want to get that into the second colour's bottle. Then, tap, brush, and burnish exactly like the first colour. You will use a little more glitter in the second colour than the first because you don't want to cross contaminate, but it is still a very small amount used in total.

You can see how differently the sides look when the only difference is the order of the colours applied. If I had used a white instead of the second colour on either, it would have a completely different appearance as well. 

When one of your colours is lighter than the other, you generally want to use the lightest colour last to avoid specks of the darker colour appearing in the light areas. This technique can be used with other masks as well, including die cut release paper for the adhesive.

To build the box, I used Scor-tape along the edges which join the box sides.

Following the directions to make the box, I attached the two sides together.

The finished box with the ends not folded in.

The set of dies with this box includes a poinsettia. I decided I wanted it translucent so I used some scraps of Media Mixage. I wanted to have a red flower with green leaves so I used Distress Ink to colour the vellum-like paper.

To shape the flower, I first ran the edges of the back of the petals to curve them. I used a scrap of fun foam and a clay shaper tool. An actual flower shaping tool set is on my wish list but I make do with what I have for now.

I flipped the flower and used the large ball tool to create a dish. This is a lot like dapping metal but not as noisy

I cut 2 of the flower so I could stack and offset them for fullness. I used a Glue Dot between the layers.

Using a Glue Dot, I fastened the leaves to the back of the flower.

I used two more Glue Dots to adhere the flower centres. And the flower was done.

At this point, I stamped a piece of the foiled cardstock, same as the centre of the poinsettia, and stamped it with a sentiment. But, I didn't like it. It just didn't 'grab' me. So I carefully removed it and made a new tag.

I decided I wanted to have something fun. I thought about the stamps I had and remembered the kitty playing with yarn in the A Perfect Day set that I had thought would be cute with Christmas lights. I blocked the yarn ball with a bit of masking while I was inking the stamp. I also ended up masking the yarn lines, too, because they weren't the right angle for the string of lights stamp from the Shake It Up set.

Artful masking and composite stamping can give you a unique image.

I painted up the kitty with Distress Ink and added Glossy Accents to each of the lights to give them shine and dimension. I also used black Enamel Accents on her eyes to give them 'pop'.

 To give the tag a back image and a little more body (since I had used my favourite lighter weight watercolour paper), I used a scrap of a snowy scene single sided paper. I used distress in on the edges both on the snow side and the white side.

I used the snowy paper to matte the kitty tag. Oh and I also added a sentiment and green wash to the kitty tag, too :) I used the "white" side of the snowy paper as the matting to make the tag 2 sided pretty. One more stamp adjustment, I used the sentiment from the Santa Paws set but having it in one line was too long and just not right for this tag. I carefully cut between the words. I can still use them as a single line later, but this gave me the purr-fect look for now.

I attached the flower to the kitty tag and them both to the box. I curved the tag just a bit so it isn't sticking so far flat off the box.

The backside of the box is as pretty as the front.

So, did I make a good choice on changing the tag? Isn't that kitty tangled in Christmas lights just too adorable?