I am always looking for a place to put those pesky little things that are necessary but always seem to add to clutter, especially on my desktop. It seems that if I have a pile of paper clips or rubber bands that come in those little baggies that don’t reseal, they tend to crawl out on my workspace while I’m sleeping (or maybe they were out partying and didn’t quite get back in the bag by morning, i.e. Toy Story.)

Whatever the case, they add to the clutter on my desktop. I don’t mind a little clutter. Remember the adage that if a cluttered workspace is the sign of a cluttered mind, then what’s an empty workspace the sign of? That applies on my workspace as well as my desktop.

I came across these specialty coffees at my local Kroger. The coffee line had been sold to another distributor, and they were clearing out the old merchandise, so I bought what they had left (Calm down. It was only four boxes, all the same flavor.), strictly for the coffee. When it came time to dump the first tin, I had recycling thoughts, washed it and stashed it in my items-to-use-one-of-these-days file drawers. Since then, two more have mysteriously appeared, washed and dried, in my studio, thanks to my honey who used to ask, “Is this an embellishment?”, but now just assumes it is unless it’s biodegradable.

Anyway, the reason I wanted to share this today is that I promised to use the pieces of the leftover stencil flourish from my Wednesday, Sept. 1 post and I also made a great discovery with Krylon Fusion spray paint just before I went to CHA in July.

Here’s how to do this:

Supplies
Coffee tin or other tin with plastic lid
Krylon Fusion Paint, Espresso
Patterned paper
Colorbox Ink, Chestnut Roan and Peacock Blue (Clearsnap)
Sizzix Flourish die
Nameplate (RockCandy Studios)
Brads
Watch parts (RockCandy Studio)
Computer-generated label
Beacon Quick Grip adhesive
Be Creative Double-stick Tape
Embellie Jellie (Scraperfect)
Waxed Paper
Rubber bands

Directions
1. Wash and thoroughly dry tin and lid.
2. Paint lid (outside only) with two coats of Espresso paint and allow to dry.
3. Trim patterned paper to fit tin sides. Sponge paper edges with both inks.
4. Apply Be Creative tape to tin. I used the 2″ wide strip and another 1/2″ wide. Add paper to cover all. Glue portions of flourish to tin front and sides.
5. Wrap tin with a strip of waxed paper and secure with rubber bands to make sure curved edges stay in place until glue dries.
5. Attach brads to nameplate. If the shanks are too long and show on the outside of the nameplate, trim them to fit and add a drop of Quick Grip to secure. Trim and sponge label and attach to lid center. Add nameplate.
6. Using Embellie Jellie, pick up tiny watch parts, add glue and place randomly on lid.

The Krylon discovery is that the Espresso paint, with it’s tiny sparkles and slightly rough texture, looks just like a very dark rust. I’ll bet if you rubbed some dark orange pastels lightly on the surface, it would be hard to tell it from the real thing. If you do choose to add pastels, be sure to seal it with some Krylon Fusion Clear so it won’t rub off. This technique works on paper as well, so you could use some of the Sizzix dies, such as Tim Holtz’s Gadget Gears, Regal Crest, Hanging Sign, Caged Bird, Elegant Flourishes, etc., and they would look authentic. Paint paper scraps, run them through a texture plate and you have the makings of a rusty tin scrapbook page which would be great for men, boys and tomboys.

That’s it for today. Be sure to come back Monday for another great project here and check out all the other postings to this blog. I promise you that I am in crafting royalty with this group!

Have a fun long weekend!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 3rd, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under General Chatter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.