Altered and upcycled box tutorial

Hello, everyone.  I do hope you are having a lovely weekend.

If you follow me from WOYWW you may have seen an altered box hiding at the back in various stages of altering.

Well, I finished it and thought I would do a tutorial.  Its a little photo heavy as I still cannot fathom why youtube takes so long to upload (hrs for a 3 minute video!!), but if you'd like to learn how I made some embellishments for pennies then read on.


 I started with an empty box.  It contained a natural sweetener and the box seemed too good to chuck so I thought I would alter it and turn it into a treasure chest.

This is the before

 This is the after.  It cost virtually pennies to make!

 

I painted the box with acrylics, a mix of brown, black and green.  I then dried it with a heat gun and added some gold, black and green wax to the edges, buffed it up and painted a satin water based acylic varnish over the box to seal it.

To make the embellishments I made some moulds from a metal cog and a skull and cross bones pendant.  

I used a hot glue gun to fill the moulds

 When dry, pop them out of the moulds, there may be some overspill but there is a real easy fix

Tidy up the embellishments with scissors.  I use my Tim Holtz scissors, they have amazing micro serrated blades and this means they are a great work horse.

 When they are all tidied up I covered them in black acrylic dabber and then rubbed gold wax over them and buffed them up.  I sealed them with the same acrylic  sealant and now they are ready to use.

 I glued them to the box with multi medium and added some hinges that I stamped with a paper artsy stamp onto grunge paper and cut out.  I coloured the hinges with copper distress stains and attached them with mini brads

I also made a lock with a paper artsy stamp on grunge paper and added a couple of larger brads at the front which I texturised by walloping with a hammer!!

So there you have it.  A treasure chest ready to fill with whatever you choose.  I was thinking scrunching up some brightly coloured tissue paper inside and filling the box with chocolates!!  

Either way, I think this is a great gift box, a one off and best of all its upcycled and cost pennies...whats not to like?

I'd love to know what you think.

Happy crafting

Kyla