Steampunk Spells mini-trunk

I love the new graphic 45 paper "Steampunk Spells"!!!! I used some snippings from the new paper line to spice up my painted wooden mini-trunk.

To make the mini-trunk, first I painted and papered a small wooden box purchased from "Michaels". It's a small recipe card size box.

 

I painted it the edges with Tim Holtz distress paint and distressed it a little. I used colors broken china, vintage photo, black soot, and tarnished brass. The distress paint works great on wood. It's very fluid and easy to work with. Then I covered the box with paper from the "Poetic Postage" paper pad by The Paper Studio.

I used scotch quick dry adhesive to glue the paper onto the box. After the paper has been glued onto the box, I seal the paper with a matte decoupage glue. After the paper has been sealed and has dried overnight, then I varnish over the entire box with a water-based matte varnish like Americana DecoArt duraclear matte varnish. Be careful not to close the box while the varnish is still wet!

 

I decided to use the paper with the more subtle colors for the background of the box, so the brighter steampunk spells paper images would stand out. I cut out little snippets, distressed the edges with distress ink, and glued them onto the box. To antique the box edges I used a technique called dry-brush where you take a dry brush and dab it in a tiny bit of black paint, and rub most of it out on a paper towel until there's not much paint left. Then lightly brush the dry brush around on the edges of the wood and edges. Since there's not very much paint on the brush, and it's kind of dry, you can control how much paint goes on by brushing it more times on the wood. I can't explain it very well, you just have to practice it. It's like putting powdered blush on your cheeks...kind of...well you know.

I even painted and finished the bottom of the mini-trunk.

I've already filled the mini-trunk with many secrets. I'm making a new charm bracelet and it's holding all of my charms for the new bracelet. I will share the secret and mystical bracelet in my next post.

Love the steampunk spells paper! I'm sure I will make many more creative items with it. Maybe even a new Halloween Table!!! Hey, I'm feeling like it's time for Halloween in July! I could use some fall weather about now. Today it was 104 degrees out today!