ATC-storage

Today I did my very first altered art project and I admit it - I so want to share it with you! (This will also be my last project before we leave for a three-weeks' holiday, so I think it may be a longer post than usual ;)
 As this will become quite a long post, I will only do it in English this time, hoping this will neither offend my German readers, nor my English readers because of my rather "moderate" English. 

Two or three weeks ago I stumbled over this metal photo-box and immediately the idea was clear in my mind: this was to become my one and only precious atc-storage! (Costing only 9 Euros, it was not too pricy - therefore I dared altering it. I admit, I can be quite a sissy with things like that...).

This is the "before"-look of the box.

As you can see, there are three hanging storage compartments in the box and I loved especially the handles at it's side!

First I altered the sides and the top with Ranger Alcohol inks "Rust", "Sunset Orange" and "Juniper".

After that it took me quite a while to choose the "perfect" papers for the back and front. I wanted them to match with the rusted look but also to be some of my favourites in grungy and vintage style. Because I only own "favourite sheets", this turned out to be the most time-expensive step of the project.

Finally I was successful when browsing the Tim Holtz paperstashes. Of course ;)

But during the search I stumbled upon some long-time treasured single sheets from Graphics 45, which I decided to use for some layering.

I cut the back and front papers to size, inked the edges with "rusty hinge" and "vintage photo" and glued them to the front and the back.

So this is how the box looked like
after doing the sides with Ranger alcohol inks and covering the front and back with the Tim Holtz papers.

Next I needed to cut out some chipboard letters for the "atc" on front. They should match the look of the silvery metal and rusty tones, so I stamped the Tim Holtz script stamp with embossing ink over the three letters in one turn and embossed them with silver "Sternenstaub".

After embossing, I inked them with Distress inks "rusty hinge", "mustard seed", "vintage photo" and a light shade of "broken china". As the edges still turned out too bright, I did some additional outlining with a dark brown felt tip pen.

The "finish" consisted of a rather long time of "playing around", arranging the paper-pieces and scraps I had intended to collage on the front. Some of them I tore, others I cut out. I inked all of them at the edges, but not before distressing some of them with my carpet knife blade.

After fixing the layers on the background paper with my new and cool permanent glue roll-on from tesa, I stamped some Tim Holtz images with "rusty hinge", "spiced marmalade" and "vintage photo" to get more texture. Finally I  finished the front with a self-adhesive paper-lace-border at the right. To add at least a tiny bit of depth, I attached the "storage"-label with sticky foam pads. Voila!

At the backside I just added a border and one gold-embossed image of the Tim Holtz airplane, as the paper itself was already quite vibrant.

I almost forgot to do the little "atc"-tabs to stick into the label clips on the lids at the top. I used black card and embossed the letters in silver, to match the metal.

Here, finally, some pictures of the whole finished box, which I cannot wait to fill with awesome new traded cards! Hope you enjoyed sharing this project with me! CU, die amelie xxx

I am going to enter this project at the Fashionable Stamping Challenges-blog, where "anything goes".