Inspiration by Gwyneth - April 2016 - Artistic Expressions

Good Morning Everybody!

Hi everybody.

For our April posts every Dragons Lair Designs Inspiration Blog Design Team member will be working with the wonderful new collection "Artistic Expressions" that was launched in the Dragons Lair Designs Store on the 1st.

I think the colours are very cheerful in this collection, and lend themselves to a lot of different creations.

It was because I thought the collection very cheerful, and because there are lots of different floral elements within the collection I decided to make a gift to cheer a person up in hospital for this Dragons Lair Designs Inspiration blog post.

We all know now that lots, if not all, hospitals don't let people bring in real flowers.  And even silk or paper flowers catch a lot of dust, and what's worse a display of "fake" flowers is prone to be damaged when being moved around during cleaning, or in transporation to or from the hospital.  So I set about thinking about a way I could make a display that could be opened to be admired, but that could be closed up for safe carying home at the end of the patient's stay in hospital.

This is what I came up with:

These are what I used:

Stamping Dragon Designs Item:

Items from the "Artistic Expressions" collection available - here - in the store.

Consumables:
Book shaped box file; 250gsm Super Smooth white paper; Ultra tacky double sided tape; Glue Gun; Pink lace; White Gesso; Nuvo silver Crystal Drops

Equipment:
Scissors; Paint Brush;

Cards & Method:

I wanted the box to be easily moved, carried around and stored, without risk of too much damage, so I decided that keeping any decoration on it flat would be the best option.  I took various backgrounds and elements from the collection into My Craft Studio to create a flat A4 sized panel for the front of the box.  Once I was happy with the layout I printed it out, cut it out, and then gave the edges a bit of a rough look by running the open blade of the scissors up and down it.

I also took lots of the different floral shaped elements, and the leafy branches, into MCS, resized and replicated them, and made several sheetsw of flowers and branches up.  These I also printed out, and began cutting out over a couple of evenings - though I still had some left to cut when I got to the next stage of my creating.  I also printed out one of the background panels that included a torn edge pattern.

I decided to make my creation using a book shaped box file I'd bought in a sale quite some time ago.

As the inside was a flowery pattern, of a similar bluey colour as within the collection, I decided not to cover it up completely.

But the outside wasn't to my taste, because, as most of you know, I do very little of my crafting with English wording on.  neither of these two pictures show clearly that the top, bottom and right sides have the look of the sides of paper sheets in a book.

So I gathered everything together, and put a large craft mat over the kitchen table - not a crafting in bed project this time.

And decided to paint the front and back of the box using white Gesso. I did remove the price label first.

I wasn't looking for perfection, just a good covering.  This is the back of the box after painting.

The front looked the same.

I then put some ultra tacky tape behind the panel I'd created for the box front and stuck it on.

I did the same with the similar with the similar panel sticking it inside the front cover.

I used the same tape again to stick in the square panel just down from the top inside the back of the box.

I then used a hot glue gun to stick the leafy branches inside the back of the box slightly up from the bottom and over part of the panel - not sticking down completely but giving some shapeing.  After that I used the glue gun again to stick the flowers on one by on from the bottom of the box and up part way over the bottom of the branches, until I had a display of flowers inside the box.

I also used the glue gun to attach some extra flowers to the panel inside the front cover.

I finished off by adding silver Nuvo Crystal Drops to the flower centres.

This shows the "book page" look of three sides of the book box file.

This is a closer look at the inside front of the box.

 This is a closer look at the inside of the box.

This is another look at the box when opened on display.

-oOo-

And that is it from me for today.
Please keep coming back regularly to look at new posts as, over the next few weeks, you'll find various "Inspiration by ..." posts appear on this "Dragons Lair Designs Inspiraiton Blog", as well as other posts by different Design Team members.  I'll be back with more posts over the coming months as well, so keep an eye out for those.

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Stamping Dragon Designs Links

• If you fancy trying out some of Dragons Lair Designs, please do visit the Store to find all sorts of digital goodies (you'll find great digi-stamps and lots more).
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Till next time - Have Fun Crafting!

Dragons Lair Designs Inspiration Blog Design Team Leader

(And if you are wondering "who's Gwyneth?" - then you'll find an "About Me and My Blog!" piece on my blog.)