Autumnal ATB by Astrid

Hi everyone and thanks for dropping in here. After a little break in July, I am back with my first project for August.

Somehow, this being the middle of August already with the summer definitely slowly coming to an end, I was drawn towards Autumnal colours. Always being short of storage boxes for those little bits and pieces, I decided to make an ATB using the large Eileen Hull die. This Artist Trading Block, measure 3 x 3 x 3", so is a perfect size for little embellishments etc.
I started by cutting the die for my cube twice as per instructions, out of 480 grammes black card stock. Next I made a kind of master board to cut my panels from.

I took a piece of 12 x 12 plain card and splattered it with Dylusions Inks in Melted Chocolate and Fresh Lime, spritz with water and let it drip a bit. I then over stamped with the Marbelled Background stamp in Orange Blossom Archival ink. At this point I was just playing to see what would happen. Here is a close up:

I cut my background into five 2.75 by 2.75" (7 x 7 cm) squares, to cover the sides and top of my box.

I really did make 5 lol, even though there are only 4 in the photo, but they all pretty much look the same anyway. Next I went and darkened and blended each one with Distress Inks in Scattered Straw, Vintage Photo and Walnut Stain. This was starting to look a lot more like what I was after...

At last the fun of decorating each panel could begin:

For this one I used the Calligraphic Mat 12 , stamped in Antique Linen Distress Paint, a honey comb stencil from my stash and a stamp from the Katie Leitch "Hand Stamped" set. The diecut was a gift from a friend.

This one was just stenciled with  the Tim Holtz  Eye Chart stencil, it's my least favourite so I decided to use it for the top as I knew it would be covered over.
The next two panels use stamps from the Katie Leitch  Leaves set.

The final panel uses a stamp from the Hand Stamped set again. I also used the Chicken Wire background stamp

Time to put it all together. I decided to add a little figure to the top of my box to add as a vocal point:

This is from the Tim Holtz found relative cards, the smallest of the 3 cowboys. The rest of the lid was decorated with some bits and pieces from my stash:

For the closure of my box I used one of the little metal fasteners, altered with some Espresso Alcohol Ink.

Well, hope you like my little box, these ATBs are so much fun and make great decorative pieces as well as being useful storage boxes.

Thank you for visiting and enjoy the rest of the week!