Altered Box with Coasters & Matching Card

These are some items I altered as a gift to a friend. BTW if you've been following me and my camera problems I still haven't been able to download the pictures. I had to resort to lifting them from Julie's blog (http://www.mutchtostamp.blogspot.com/) to put on my blog (of couse with her permission). Julie has also asked that I give a tutorial on making the coasters. So here goes!

I'm going to start with the boxes I altered. Dollar store wooden box covered with patterned paper. I cover the sides of the box one at a time...I cover the box completely with glue stick and also the patterned paper. Make sure you use a brayer or firmly press the paper to the box, paying close attention to the sides and corners as you don't want it to lift. I only do one side at a time so I can see where the box bottom meets the lid. Once the glue has dried I use an exacto knife to cut the paper so the lid will separate. The advantage to doing this is your design will match up perfectly.
This is just a top view of the box. If you look closely I used a clear glaze pen to color in the leaves. If almost makes it look like it was embossed giving it that glossy look.

The card is a pretty basic design using the stamp set "One Of A Kind". I've stamped it four times and cut out three of those images to layer using dimensionals. I love to stamp and cut. The cute bling on the card are diamonds, well not really, but the little rhinestones were given to my by Kim. I've had so much fun with them. They are actually called cell phone bling and I think it can be found at Future Shop. Just see how creative stampers can be.

If you're still reading, onto what I'm supposed to be giving a tutorial on.
I've used tumbled tiles for this project. They are porous and will absorb ink and other mediums unlike the glazed tiles what you would usually find in kitchens and bathrooms. These can be bought at Kent's or Home Depot. At Kent's (as of yesterday) you can buy them individually which also means you can pick out good ones. Many will have flaws in the top which makes it hard to get a good stamped image.
To stamp the image on the tile I use Stazon Ink or Ancient Page Black Archival Ink. Both of these inks are waterproof so will not smear or bleed if you color over them with markers, blending pens etc. However if you do make an error in stamping to get the color off you will need to sand the tile. Next I took chalks and a sponge dauber and rubbed the chalk over the areas on the tile that I wanted to color. Because it is chalk you need to put a sealant over the image so it doesn't rub off. I used a Krylon spray, (left over from my tole painting days....sound familiar). I would have sprayed two or three coats but they would have been a very light misting. If you spray too heavy it will cause the chalks to run.
Other ways to color in the images would be to use markers, blender pens with chalks, pigment inks, or watercolor pencils. Depending on the medium you are using to color in the image will depend if it needs to be sealed. If the coaster is sealed it won't aborb the water off of a cold glass. There are other methods besides the sealing with a spray which entails heat setting the image by way of putting it in an oven and baking it.

If you have any questions regarding this project drop me an e-mail.

Until later....

Yvonne