A box for my nephew Jack

My gorgeous nephew Jack is being Christened tomorrow, and I'm so honoured that I'll be his Godmother. A special present was in order, so I've created a keepsake box for his treasures. I particularly wanted to make something that wasn't babyish, although he's not quite 7 months, but I wanted something that would last. I had a box in mind, a blank about 8in square that I picked up ages ago with 4 apertures in the lid. So, after several weeks of painting and spraying and stamping, here it is......

I primed the box with gesso, then painted the whole box with blue acrylics. Once dry, I sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer Misters in Aqua Lagoon and Midnight Blue for a bit of shimmer. It gives a lovely depth to the flat acrylic colour.

 

 

His name- Jack William- and date and year of birth were stamped round the edges of the lid using a lovely See D's Ancient alphabet, really elegant lettering. I used a Stazon Midnight Blue inkpad so that it wouldn't rub off or fade.

I wanted something special for the apetures on the top, as they would be the main focus of the piece, and I toyed with each of the 4 letters of his name in the squares, but hadn' got stamps big enough. Eventually, inspiration struck when I visited the Paperartsy blog and remembered I'd bought some Ferro paints at the NEC show. These are thick paste like paints, which can be stamped into. I had a pewter colour and an antique gold. The trick seems to be to have moistened your stamp before you stamp into the Ferro, and also to have applied the right thickness- too much and it squelches and sticks to your stamp, too little and the impression isn't deep enough. A little trial and error led to the following....

Two sections are stamped with a Heidi Swapp clock stamp, the other two with a dotty background stamp and my favourite Hero Arts Old French Writing stamp.Once dry, I spritzed with more cosmic shimmers, in lots of different shades- blue, red, gold and green. Here's some close ups.

I finished off with the words Memories and Treasures on the top of the lid.  I'm really pleased with it, it has a lovely shimemr to the whole piece and the little squares are lovely to touch, very tactile. I hope Jack and his mom and dad like it as well!!