3 W's ~ WOODEN, WILD AND WORD ART ADVENTURE FOR CREATIVE CARTE BLANCHE

Happy May everyone and welcome to my blog!

This month at Creative Carte Blanche, the lovely and talented Cheryl Grigsby is hosting our latest art adventure.  She is challenging us to stretch our creativity to include 3 W's ... using something WOODEN, WILD and WORD.

I have created a vintage shabby chic style miniature cabinet that I call "The Bird Chest".  This is a view of the chest with the doors open.

Here is a view with the doors closed.

And here is a side view of this sweet little chest.  

The 3 Ws for this challenge include:

• Wooden - the chest
• Wild - the birds
• Word - "Fly" on the top of the chest and "Soar" on the back of the chest

Now I will happily take you through my steps in creating this new Spring home decor piece I already have found a spot for in my guest room.

The chest is approximately 6" tall.  I found this plain little chest at Michaels for $1.00.

I wanted to add some detail to the sides of the chest and I knew that I wanted it to be bird related so ...

I measured the sides of the chest, found an interesting feather clipart image on the internet and sized it to fit the sides of my chest.  Next I rolled out some Paper Clay and cut out around the feather image.

I added more detail to the feathers with my cutting tool after I cut out the shapes and set them aside to dry thoroughly overnight.  

In the meantime, I painted a light coat of DecoArt Burnt Umber acrylic paint over the wooden chest as a basecoat.

I have the most wonderful pieces of old German book text.  So I measured, cut and tore pieces to lay onto the shelves of the chest.  

And I loved that look so much that I decided to add more text to the back of the chest.  I glued them all in place using Matte Medium as a glue and then as a sealer.

I also tore a piece and adhered it to the back of the chest using Matte Medium as a glue and then sealer.  Let all of the text dry thoroughly.

Next I mixed Decoart paints and their Crackle Paint to get a soft salmon or peach-ish color.  I was hoping that I had not added so much paint to the Crackle Paint that I messed up the ratio and the paint would not crackle.

It didn't crackle a lot but it did still have some nice crackling and I loved the texture it produced.  I sanded off the rough edges and I was ready for the next step.

I added a layer of Raw Umber Antiquing Cream to the chest and wiped off the excess.  I rubbed most of the antiquing cream off.  I just wanted to leave a hint of "age" from the cream.

Next I began to add my complimentary color to the chest; my favorite ... teal!  Using a small brush, I began with the feathers on the sides of the chest.  I also added some black accents to the tips of the feathers and around the edges to make them stand out.

Then using my fingers, I rubbed a mixture of Cobalt Teal Hue and Titan Buff and began applying the teal color to the chest itself; creating the shabby chic appeal.  I love working with my fingers because I get a much better feeling for the project when my fingers are gliding over it rather than a paint brush.

For the back of the chest, I created a "skin" using Matte Medium and a bird image I sized and printed off of the internet. I added the sentiment and printed out a couple of copies using an inkjet printer and regular copy paper.  If you have words on the image, be sure that you reverse them before you print them out.  

To do this "skin" technique, you simply brush a generous amount of Matte Medium over the image; brushing in one direction and removing all of the brush strokes possible.  Let dry.  Then add another coat of Matte Medium brushing in the opposite direction and let dry.  Finally, brush one more generous amount of Matte Medium over the image in the original direction and let dry thoroughly.

Once dry, wet the image and begin gently rubbing off the paper backing of the image. Continue this process until all of the paper backing is removed.  You will have to do this two or three times.  

Once as much of the paper backing as possible is removed, brush Matte Medium over the book text on the back of the chest.  Lay the "skin" in place over the book text, burnish out the air bubbles and brush Matte Medium over the image to glue it in place.  Then brush over the image to keep the pulpy backing from returning once the image dries again.  It is called a "skin" because you can still see the book text underneath the image.  It gives the image sort of a ghostly appearance.

To blend the bird image into the back better, I added some of my chest colors around the edges of my skin.

Next I finished up the exterior by adding more of the teal top coat using my finger.

Finally to the back of the chest, I added some Scrabble tiles that I had distressed much in the same way I did the small dominos below (see technique with next pictures).  I added the teal paint mixture over some of the tiles then edged them with DecoArt Carbon Black acrylic paint.  I also ran my fingers along the edges of the bird chest with the acrylic paint to better define the edges and age them.

Here is the completed back side of the chest.  I added a little bit of color to the bird using my Neocolor II watercolor crayons and a Detail Water Brush.  

  
I created a sweet little element to add to the top of my chest by first distressing a small domino with various acrylic paint colors and my fingers to give it an aged, distressed look.  Once that was dry, I added an image of small birds sitting on a branch that I sized to fit the domino.  I glued it in place using Matte Medium.  Once dry, I sanded off the edges to make them meld into the domino.  Then I brushed Matte Medium over the image to seal it.  Super easy to go but really a nice element to add to my bird chest.

After distressing a mini domino, I stamped "FLY" on it using small letter stamps.  I used black permanent ink so that the ink on the letters would not smear.  I gently heat set it and edged the domino with black paint using my finger.

Next I created some little bird books to put on the shelves of the chest.  These are so easy to do.

I found some images of bird book covers on the internet and sized them to fit my shelves.  Then I printed them out using my ink jet printer and left space to the left of the covers so that I could fold them over to create a "book".

I inked the edges of the book covers with a dark brown ink to age them.  I also cut little strips of paper to fit inside of the book covers.  I folded them in half, to represent interior pages of a book.  I inked the edges with the dark brown ink and then glued the pages together at the center fold using Glossy Accents.  Once I had glued 3 or 4 pages together, I glued them to the center fold on the book cover.  Wha-lah!  Instant miniature book!

I glued the two dominoes some miniature eggs I colored with a mixture Cobalt Teal Hue and Titan Buff using my fingers and one book on to the top of the shelf along with a little excelsior grass with Glossy Accents.  Pretty cute!

Here is a closer look at the inside of the little bird chest.  I love how all of these elements are so sweet and fill up the shelves.  They were all glued into place using Glossy Accents.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog to check out my 3Ws project for Creative Carte Blanche.  I hope you'll join us by stretching your imagination to create a piece made of wood, something wild and including a word.  Then post it to our blog so that everyone can share in your creative process.

Have a great week!