Playing with some G45 { and Kelly's birthday gift}

 I  soooooooooooo love me some Graphic 45!  How can you not ? All those gorgeous papers  just begging to be fussy cut  into all those beautiful little pieces! and I love fussy cutting...tedious but yet somehow, relaxing.

So the other night, I dug out the gorgeous graphic45 Birdsong papers that KELLY brought me when she visited last September.  Another thing I love {and collect} is birdhouses. Well this seemed like a marriage made in heaven and I decided to tackle one {of the many} wooden birdhouses that I have sitting around my scrap room waiting to be decorated. This is what I came up with....

 

and a little close up...

 

 

 There is a double thick layer of dimension dots behind the birds and flowers for support.

 Back view... I left this pretty plain actually { Kelly told me not to add anymore lol}.

 

 So if this little birdhouse was for me, I bet you are wondering what I made for Kelly's birthday?
  I can share this now that she has received it... a tea box made with g45's LADIES' DIARY  pps. {Yes the same ones I used for my wall tray a while back... check it out HERE }. Kelly and I share a love of tea ...she has introduced me to some wonderful herbal teas and I have taught her how to enjoy the traditional Newfoundland cuppa... Tetley with Carnation milk! lol. Would you believe she didn't even know tin milk was for tea until I told her???? Fresh milk in tea? BLECH!

I've been sending Kelly selections of Newfoundland Teas made by DARK TICKLE COVE so I thought I'd create a little keepsake box to send this batch in.

                                                                             KELLY"S BIRTHDAY TEA BOX 

and the inside....

 
I sent a variety of teas this time...some Newfoundland teas, a yummy chocolate mint from President's Choice, two kinds from DAVID'S TEA and a Lipton ice tea {she loves that too!}. I hope she knows how much love went into this gift!

Would you like to see how I made this gift box?

I started with a plain wooden tea box that I picked up at Dollarama. I removed the hardware and then painted the box inside and out with black acrylic paint....

 Next I measured and cut out  the floral side pieces for the box. I cut the pieces  leaving about 1/4"
margin so that some of the black paint showed around the edges { I also inked all paper pieces with Distress Ink in 'Black Soot'}. I added sook-wang {aka Skor tape} to the paper pieces to adhere them to the box. I loooove sook-wang...awesome  and powerful adhesive!

Next I trimmed off the beautiful edges of two of the papers in this collection to decorate the top and sides of the box top..again leaving a small margin of the black paint showing and inking all edges with Distress Ink. You might also notice that I mitered the corners... personal preference... I just think it looks neater.

Then I added a row of beads around the edge of the glass with a liquid glue and made and added a TEA banner for the upper corner of the top. I loved the alpha sheet that came with these papers...so gorgeous and elegant!

 

 

 As you can see by the above photo, I lined each compartment inside the box with various papers from the collection...fiddly work no doubt, but I was pleased with the end result!

 

Here's how I made the floral clock embellie on the top.....

Pick out the piece you want to use and fussy cut....

I inked all edges with 'Black Soot 'except the clock face on which I used 'Vintage Photo'. After fussy cutting, I found the piece was too thin so I backed it on to a heavy black card stock and fussy cut again, leaving a tiny margin of black cs all around. I then covered the clock face with Crackle Accents. I rubbed a little more 'Vintage Photo' into the clock face when it was dried to accent the cracks. I added some pearls and dabbed a little Stickles in the center of the flowers for a little bling...a girl gotta have bling ya know! The piece was supported underneath with dimension dots.

 I also fussy cut, layered on black cardstock, and fussy cut again, a teapot and cups to decorate the front of the box. Re-attach all the hardware and fill with your fave teas. Viola!

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial today. Happy Birthday dear Kelly...save me a cuppa for when I come to visit again in September. Thanks for popping by today ! Toodles!