It's Paperartsy 3UP time again

To celebrate their 10th birthday, the wonderful people at Paperartsy are having a party - a blog party and I was delighted to be invited to take part again following a recruitment campaign on twitter.

This time we were sent a bigger parcel of goodies and a list of instructions - here's mine:

We all got a colour swatch to follow, a substrate - as you see, mine is a little box with a loose lid, stamps, Paperartsy smoothy paper, and some embellishments (a pack of flowers)

I loved the colour swatch I was given, and chose my paints accordingly...
I painted the whole of the inside and out with Haystack, then added the other colours - Hey Pesto, Chocolate Pudding and Smoked Paprika, adding paint, wiping it back and adding more, until I was happy.. though not so with the photos, sorry!
I decided I would add some hinges to my box, to make it easier (I hoped) to photograph and more use later...Luckily the instructions said we could add our own embellishments to what we were sent, and I had some little hinges. Finding a hammer was more of a problem, till I remembered my Tim Holtz Texture Hammer!

I admit, I really, totally struggled with the set of stamps I was given... I am not a cat girl, and couldn't work out how to use many of them on my box...  So I took one of the patterns from the set, and stamped round the edges.

The flowers would be easy to use, I love flowers both in stamp form and as embellishments. but the top needed something else, so I stamped the same pattern onto some tissue paper (I have been hoarding some sheets of the much-missed Paperartsy crackly tissue  but any thin tissue will work) 4 times, then painting the tissue with Smoked Paprika, cutting out the strips, trimming to fit the lid and applying with Paperartsy Fresco Satin Glaze.

I applied two coats of Satin Glaze over the whole of the lid, and one to the sides.

Time to arrange  the flowers - that took ages longer than I thought, to get them right.  I decided to add some extra bits - idea-ology from my stash - to break up the softness a bit.

Close up of the flowers.

I decided to leave the box plain inside so it can be used as a little trinket box.

I'd like to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in organising this at Paperartsy - I know it's been a lot of work - and for letting me play again with you!

Happy 10th birthday, Paperartsy.