Happy Easter Inspiration at That Craft Place plus a DecoArt Tutorial

Time for the some new inspiration over at That Craft Place Challenges and a new DecoArt Tutorial as well!

Over at That Craft Place Challenges there will be additional inspirational projects every Tuesday and Thursday tfrom now on. As Lisa also sells a lot of awesome DecoArt products I did this workshop for both - the DecoArt International Design Team and Lisa's store.



The awesome goodies Lisa (the owner of That Craft Place bricks and mortar and online shop) sent me to work with, inspired me to create this little Easter Shadow box:

The box is made from scraps of thick corrugated card and I used a real egg on it, but everything else used I used to create it can be bought with Lisa's awesome shop or with her shop facebook group.

- DecoArt Americana "Primary Yellow", "Sea Glass", "Rockwood Red"
- bark
- feathers
- embossed cardboard wings
- wood frame and crown
- tiny bunny embellishment
- masking tape
- Ditzie Designs clearly background "Wood Grain" stamp
- rough textural burlap
- DecoArt Weathered Wood Crackle Medium
- DecoArt matte Decou Page
- Distress Inks "aged mahogany", "mustard seed"
- clear embossing powder

I first stamped the lovely "Wood Grain" Ditzie Designs stamp with DI "aged mahogany" and clear embossed it. The size of that panel gave me the size for my whole shadow box - so I cut four sides and a backplate from thick corrugated card and glued the box together using masking tape on the outside (to hold everything in place) and Decou Page to make all the parts stick together. While this was set aside to dry I painted the lovely cardboard wings Lisa gave me.

I first gave them a coat of "Rockwood Red" acrylic paint and let dry. Then it was given a thin coat of DecoArt Weathered Wood and after that had touch dried I painted all over with a layer of DecoArt Americana "Sea Glass" (as this matched the colour of my little Easter egg perfectly).

The bark I cut to size and used for decorating the frame was also given some drybrushing with DecoArt Americana "Sea Glass" to make the elements bond into one design (which you can see above). The next images shows the assembly of my bark frame and the glued in place stamped panel that I had inked with DI "Mustard Seed" after the heat embossing.The insides of the frame were painted with DecoArt Americana "Rockwood Red" too.

The outside was painted with DecoArt Americana "Primary Yellow" - which came closest to the "mustard seed" Distress ink look.

After the paint had dried I glued the bark frame onto my shadow box using DecoArt Decou Page glue.

I needed something to glue my cut in half wings parts to, so I dissembled a wooden cloths pin and glued the pieces to the sides with DecoArt matte Decou Page.

You can see a tiny bit of the painted cloths pin peek out at the bottom and top of the left wing...but as I painted them the same colour as the wings they do not disturb the look of the project.

The assemblage in the center of my shadow box contains the lovely Ditzie Designs wood frame to which I fixed the tiny rabbit embellishment (using some thin rough cord), a beautiful feather and some rough burlap in the background. I fixed it all to the stamped, heat embossed and "mustard seed" DI blended background panel with matte DecoArt Decou Page - even the tiny egg and the crown on top. It also worked perfectly with glueing the bark to the corrugated card frame - you just have to make sure to use it rather heavily. As the Decou Page dries clear, nothing of it will be visible later.

To make my shadow box stand, I die cut an easel from a piece of heavy card and glued it to the back. But you can of course also hang it somewhere by glueing a hook or loop to the back of your shadow box.

The sentiment was printed from my computer, blended at the edges with DI "aged mahogany" and glued in place. Done!

I hope you like it! Happy Easter to you! And as always hugs and happy crafting,

Claudia - die amelie x