Box Life...By Nicky Cresswell

Well hello my fine blog land friends, it is I, the mad Minxy here today for your viewing pleasure....

First off can i just say..HOW FAB is the new team blog.. Don't know about you but i'm inspired already.

Right down to business... Seeing as our very first challenge had the theme chosen by me i thought it only right i actually make a piece for the occasion. {click HERE for full details of this months challenge}

I found a crackin little multi compartment frame in a charity shop just screaming for my alteration, how could i let it down, it was literally screaming.. honest! I just knew with the use of some stamps, ink and well a fair few trinkets I could transform it!

And here is the finished piece after the Inky Minx treatment..

I started by giving the whole piece a coat of acrylic paint {claudine hellmuths range is great}
There are a fair few elements to the piece as you can see, so i'll try and talk you through each space, hoping you don't nod off half way through..

The first 4 spaces consist of :-
1: a section of manilla tag to fit the gap, covered with vintage photo distress ink, and then some old scrabble tiles spelling OLD.
2: Stamped large cotton reel in different colour ink, mounting one in front of the other and finishing with a wooden cotton reel wrapped with some cotton.
3: A mini mdf letter, covered with croco {but distress crackle would also work}with a smidge of ink rubber over the top to show up the cracks
4: Image of young boy taken from the family values stamp, placed behind an inked grungeboard window, simply made by cutting a criss cross in the centre and folding the flaps inwards.

The next 4 spaces consist of :-
5: The gorgeous old fashioned sewing machine {from the dressmaker plate} stamped on a lightly inked background, with a small slit made round the needle so i could feed through a tiny scrap of fabric to give life to the machine, I mounted on some card to allow me to position the piece to the front of the space rather than against the back.
6: Multi layered flower, created by stamping the large and medium flowers from the flower power set onto some old dress making pattern tissue paper, then layering up several layers and securing with a brad.
7: Another mdf letter {same treatment as no.3} but with a dried flower sprig i found outside on my path.
8: Alcohol inked background over stamped with cogs, I also took a small left over bit of the same background to wrap round a tiny glass bottle filled with tiny watch parts, and placed a couple of idea-ology sprocket gears along side too.

And the next 4 spaces :-

9: I stamped the large bingo card as the base, stamped the small bingo card, cut it out and concertinaed it in front, finished with some vintage bingo chips.

10: Stamped the top half of one of the nude in water, I then stamped the film strip onto acetate, and masked off most of it leaving the centre spaces free to ink the same nudes face in each gap. {it's not very clear on the pic.. sorry}I placed the acetate nearer the front of the space, so there is a double layer effect.

11: Again another mdf letter {same as 3&7}

12: I little art collage using several elements from the Artists #1 plate, all stamped on a square of old book page, I mounted on some card to again bring the piece forward {like no.4}

And the final 4 spaces:-
13: I stamped the ink bottle {again from the Artists #1 plate} twice onto acetate, i cut each one out and then coloured the backs with permanent markers, then just placed them in the space.
14: Another front mounted square, lightly inked and then stamped with a pocket watch from the time and keys plate, over stamped with the words Tick Tock {from the tick tock plate} in a different colour.
15: The last mdf letter to complete the word LIFE
16: And finally a silky smooth section of white tag edged with a silver pen, and scrabble tiles spelling NEW.
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And there you have it... Well done for making it to the end, sorry it's been a long old post but i couldn't leave any details out now could i. I hope you enjoyed my art today. Come back soon to see more fab art from the rest of the team.. I'll be going all Wendy Vecchi when i return in 10 days even though i don't own any of her stamps!!! Intrigued....Then come back on the 17th to find out what i'm waffling about!