The Plain Box Society

A short while ago I answered an invitation to participate in a project based in the USA.  The idea being that each person was to decorate a 3" square kraft card box utilising two stencils from the collection of StencilGirl®
I belong to the Stencil Club (and have been chosen to be a Stencil Voice in the past)  details of the Club can be found here  - I get so much pleasure when that envelope arrives every month with goodies.

To the project...

Being in the UK it was not feasible to use the same box as everyone else

I made my own - 350gsm kraft card

Next I painted with white gesso

I knew one stencil I wanted to use and so masked off areas using sticky notes

I had delayed making, because I had so many ideas, and they were getting in the way of actually doing anything.  I settled on wanting also to use a particular paint effect

Pebeo Dyna Acrylic - it is two coloured, this means it shows up differently on white to black.

So after auditioning I settled for using a StencilClub stencil

by Julie Snidle with black paint

Mask removed

I also auditioned the Dyna paints but the one which I found to show up the colour change the best was the Violet/Blue No. 356, painted over entirety

The stencil which had been in my mind from the beginning was a circle one from the founder of StencilGirl® - Mary Beth Shaw

Used with a sparkly gritty paste - Granite Paste by Cosmic Shimmer

The lid is Gran Perla and the sides Black Pearl

And here we have the result

You can find blog posts from other participants here:

Tina, StencilGirl® Columnist and Project Organiser

Mary C Nasser 

Josefine Fouarge

Debi Adams

Christy Strickler

Tracy Kruegar

Mitra Pratt

Michele Kosciolek

Erin Reed
Robyn Wood
Beth Soler
Kristie Taylor
Yvonne Yam

Memories

I am pootling along with arty things, but not for sharing, for some considerable time to come.

However, during the course of my top secret endeavours I decided I needed to have a play with my Flower Loom.
Now it should be in a drawer I says... him indoors helps me look. Its yellow I says.  Him indoors finds it - is this it?

As you can see, not yellow - but in my defence, I think I was recalling the one I had as a child, and that was definitely yellow.
The last time I used it was to make this...

Made from wire

This is the second thing we've turned the house upsidedown looking for, last one was a RED sketchbook, which turned out to be Blue.  Ooops.

I also tried to find some part done course work - but can't, may be I decided to start over and threw it away. It will be safely in an orange folder which turns out to be green!

Back to the drawer of hidden delights from long ago.  I knew this was in it, so out it came for a play - do you know what it is/does?  No points for saying a Thunderbird.

Its an Easy Punch

This particular version is battery operated.  I was reminded of it, because I've seen brand new ones launched as a 'new tool'.  I've had this since around 1980.  Effectively it punches through the fabric and leaves little loops of thread.  From my memory, unless you are careful, they all pull out again.  Its a bit like another lethal tool I own, never to be used - Tambour Hook.

So after finding the above and watching YouTube to remember how to thread the thing - tool yes, instructions no - its obviously died of old age.  No life was to be found in it.  So I might keep the needles, as it might work by hand, if I can be bothered, and the needle threader which is about 5" long, sure I will discover why I ever needed one of those.

Now if only I could remember what the gismo was which mother bought in the 70s, like a knitting machine but only 10" long - back in the days when K-Tel and Ronko brought out all these 'must have' bits of nonsense.