"remember"

As you may still remember, I have been given some awesome cigar boxes by a very dear friend of mine, that are waiting to be altered. The first one I altered was this one.

As I guess I am best known in blog-land for my altered pieces, for distressed, dark, grungy and/or time-worn looks, using aged embossing enamels and for embellishing with metal pieces and vintage pics, I cannot withstand to enter SSSS's challenge with this project, as they ask "what are you known for? " ( a clever theme for a challenge and my cigar-box just fits in perfectly - if this isn't the perfect coincidence, huh?!!!).

I am also entering the challenges at Pin And Tack ("Anything Goes" - SYCN), Happy Daze ("use something recycled"), Eclectic Paperie' ("Altered boxes"), Out of a Hat Creations("most useful stamp" - which my Hero Arts tiny alphabet stamp set I use for the "remember" in fact is, as it is the one I use most often) and Vintage Stamping Challenges ("Vintage") with this project (at least the "remember" is stamped - hope this will do ;).

I altered this cigar box (its orginal state can bee seen in my first altered cigar box post which is linked at the beginning of this post) using the faux leather technique from "Technique Tuesday's" awesome tutorial (which can be found here) again. But for the second box I varied that technique a little by covering the ink-blended masking tape surface with a heat embossed coat of "Old Paper" embossing powder and after that another coat of clear rock candy Distress crackle paint. That was followed by spraying the hardened surface with loads of spray paints from Mr. Huey's, Glimmer Mist and Maya Road to achieve a quite dark appearance that should match the mainly silvery aged embellishments.

The lady on the photograph assumably is a very early ancestor of mine...I found her picture in the photobox my beloved grand-aunt left me. According to her dress and hat this one has to be taken in the late eightteen-hundreds I guess. (wow!)

I distressed a copy of the image with the distressing tool and blended the edges with "vintage photo" and the image with "antique linen". I gave a piece of white lace a bath in Distress inks and stains.

Before I attached the embellishments to it using tiny loops, I darkened them with StazOn jet black ink, which I rubbed in using a small sponge dauber, wiping off the excess with my "painting cloth" (a piece of one of my husband's old (and can be seen through) t-shirts I finally managed to sort out from his all time favourites pile unseen...*phew!).

The hinges (cut out from a Kraft core sheet using the awesome Alterations die from the TH series for Sizzix) were embossed with Fran-tage "aged silver embossing enamel" and glued to the box using special power glue (as usual craft glues won't stick to that kind of surface).

For easily opening the box I attached a piece of brown lace ribbon to the lid's inside, fixing it with a piece of masking tape and later with an additional layer of paper from one of my stashes that would cover the whole inside of the lid.

The book plate was heat embossed with aged silver embossing enamel too and glued to the box instead of fixed with the brads as the lid would have been too thick to simply punch holes in it.

I had one of my awesome Prima flowers left, that matched the design of the box perfectly and I embossed that one too with small traces of aged silver embossing enamel (you possibly could have guessed by now which embossing enamel is my absolute favourite ;). I added two punched leaves, that were coloured by using Distress stains "brushed pewter". (Maybe you can see some of it on the picture.... love these crackles!!!)

For additional embellishing I used some silver parts for making jewelry. The "remember" was stamped with my Hero Arts tiny alphabet stamp set.

As usual some close-ups (which means you have finally reached the end of this post ;)

Hope, you enjoyed your visit today!

Wishes,

die amelie xx