Such a Sweet Altered Box......Made from a Sweet Box....as it happens! My First Altered Box

Altered Chocolate box Ive made

BEWARE.....A LOT OF PHOTOS

But its so I can keep a record of what Ive done!

Its not a tutorial...more of a "what I did" post as this is my first time doing one of these

Yes, thats right.  My scrummy hubby, or should I call him "Scrubby" kindly bought me a box of choccies the other week.  Noooooooo, he didnt put a dent in the car, or buy something stupid (thats usually me does that!) Nor is he playing away from home or has a guilty conscience!  Heehee.

 No tricks at all, my husband is merely a big suck and romantic and is always buying me flowers and chocolates.  Always has done......of course he would never admit to being a big softie.  No need to admit it Scrubby.........Ive gone and done it for you and just told everyone over the internet, haahaa!

Anyway, enough of my antics.  Here is how this box of scrumpdiddliumptous chocolates ended up.....well, the calories ended up on my tummy.....of course!  And yes, that long winded word up there is in fact a word....in my house anyway.

Bllaaaaa blaaa Loops, get to the good stuff!

Scrummy choccies

Opps....someone ate them all......greedy blighter!!

Painted one coat of white acrylic paint all over the outside of the box

Ohhh it took a lot for me to part with this MME paper that was kindly given to me by Brenda (Floral Fantasies) in her blog candy goodies I won.  I got 1 12x12 piece of this My Minds Eye paper.  Its my first time ever having their paper.  The quality is amazing.  As Im sure a lot of you know, Im one crafter who doesnt have a lot of paper.....what is wrong with me??!!  But I decided to part with this piece, I think it was pretty perfect for this box.  The spotty paper I unfortunately cant remember where its from, sorry.

I bought some of this trim from a Youtuber who has a Zibbet store.  Her Youtube name is SaCrafters and her Zibbet store is SaCrafters also.  I cut a line of the roses off the width and put it around the box with hot glue.

Underneath I added K&Co papers and used little wooden knobs as feet

I wanted to created an old looking cracked paint affect on the feet, so I painted them completely red and, let them dry completely.  Added some crackle medium, let it set for 20 mins or until it became tacky.  Then I painted some antique cream acrylic paint over the top.  As it dried, the paint cracked showing the red paint underneath.

On the Lid I wanted to add a sentiment of some sort.  I printed out the word "Treasures" and fitted it into a Tim Holtz Bookplate.  I then used glossy accents to cover the sentiment.  Sadly I ended up with some air bubbles but its meant to look rustic so.....I'll pass it off as art, lol.

I wanted to add a dressform on the lid, so I broke out my new Tim Holtz die.

I used vintage photo distress ink on the dressform and edged it with Walnut Stain distress ink.  The dress on the dressform is actually from a wide lace that Fiona Jennings very kindly gave me.  I lined the rose as close to the middle as I could and cut around it to fit the dressform shape.  I cut a lower neck on it.

I made a wee necklace out of self adhesive flat back pearls

And now for the flowers.  ALL are made by me except for the long spray stick thingies and pink spray thingies! Lol. I also used Large cream and medium brown skeleton leaves as the base to set my flowers upon.  I then started adding my Handmade flowers.

Here I added one of my Handmade stickpins.  You can see one of my red small cabbages roses nestled in between the flowers in the middle.  I have a tutorial on one of my older posts showing you how to make a cabbage rose.  Then I used the Sizzix 3D Flowers Die to make the large and small spiral roses made from cardstock and the top right pink one is a rolled rose made from pink felt.  On the left is a little blossom I made from the small flower from the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die.

A close up of the felt rolled rose and cardstock rolled roses.  The cream fabric flower beside them is one of my Fluffy Goodness Flowers, the small floating Meringue. To see more of any of these flowers, please look back on older posts.

Close up of the small rolled rose from the Sizzix 3D Flower die and blossom made from the Tim Holtz Tattered Florals Die

Along the front of the box are more of my hand made flowers.

This is a large Petaloop Flower, tutorial is on my last post.

This cream flower is another large rolled rose and the wee red and white flower beside it is one of my other handmade roses.  I also have a tutorial on that flower in an older post.

This flower I made using the Spellbinders Rose Creations Dies.  Again, I have done a tutorial on how to make this flower.

I then put this pearl trim under the fabric rose trim again with hot glue (I love my got glue gun!!).  Opps, this photo should be on up a bit.  Ah well, Im not moving it now!! Blogger isnt playing fair when Im adding photos.

This is the bling mesh I got from a Youtuber, Fiona Jennings (Jennings644)
I cut off a single bling strip and put it all way around the inside of the box
Fiona has an Etsy store here

K&Co papers on the inside of the box and bling around the edges

The completed inside

I added wide lace along the back and printed out some Ephemera from The Graphics Fairy.  These can be used as decoration in the box or used as journalling spots or photo mats.

I also printed out a little envelope from The Graphics Fairy and put some wee postcards and a picture in it too.

A wee close up of some of the photos

I made these stick pins also.  I thought they'd look nice all in a row along the lace.  They arent fixed to the lace so they can be removed and used on projects.

I love using old and decorative jewellery in my projects.  This box handle started life off as a bracelet from Primark.  I just loved these big chunky beads and of course I bought it to dismantle it!

I took the bottom bead cap off the bottom of the bead.  Made a small hole in the box lid, just big enough to feed the bead wire through.  Glued the bead to the lid for extra stability and threaded the bead wire through the small hole.  I then reattached the bead cap through the wire and remade the loop nice and tight up against the cap.  And there we have a decorative box knob.

Sorry if I bored you with photos.  But as I said, this is a catalogue of "What I did" as I am not keeping this box for myself.  It is going to be a gift for a friend.  This is my first time every altering a box like this so I hope you like it.  

Thanks for looking and for any comments.  Any questions, please ask.

Toodles Noodles,

Loops xxx

CHALLENGES I'D LIKE TO ENTER

Whimsical Inspirations - Flowers
Crafty Creations - recycled item
Crafty Card Makers - Recycle
Deep Ocean Challenge - Vintage

Flower Tutorial - Petaloops - Making flowers from fake petals

Petaloops by......Loops!

Petaloops using different types of petals

Well these certainly got a better response in tutorial wanting, than I ever thought.  I would have thought by now that you'd all be fed up looking at my flower tutorials......but apparently not.....Or....you are all too blinkin' polite to say "Oh for goodness sake Loops.......get a real hobby and stop shaping bits of fabric and paper into flowers!!" lol.  How close to the truth am I??!!  No, No.....dont tell me.  Im just going to sit here  on my make believe throne wearing my Flower Queen Crown on my noggin that I made out of...you guest it.....flowers and carry on typing this tutorial......regardless of the truth!  heehee.

So without further ado my flowery Royal subjects....or should I call you my Little Seedlings??........did I just take it too far??!! lol (I think the Flower Power is going to my head!!), heres the tutorial.

HERES WHAT YOU NEED

Petals......obviously

1.  Petals......well duh Loops.....of course we need petals!!

Doesnt matter what you have.  Cheap ones from the Pound shop, more expensive jobbies, or even the fake roses that you pinched from your Mother-in-laws fake flower display in the hallway and then took said roses apart for that craft project you just knew would come up some day.  As long as they are faux petals.....we're cooking on gas (sound like I may be sitting a bit too close to the gas...eh?)

2.  Glue.....now I prefer hot glue.  Why?  Because its super fast and I dont have to put tiny pegs onto each and every petal and wait for the wet glue to dry.  BUT.....you can use wet glue....you just gotta use wee pegs or paper clips to hold the petals in place! lol  Then you have to sit with your face in your hands and wait.......and wait a bit more....until.....voila!  The glue is dry.

3.  Scissors....no daft or sarcastic remarks for this one!  Any old scissors will do.

4.  A little circle of card....doesnt have to be perfect.  I used a 1 inch circle punch.

5.  Flower centre.....can be a button, flat back pearls, old earring, old piece of jewellery, beads, pearls....whatever you want to have as your flower centre.

ON TO THE GOOD STUFF

Get your glue gun on, cut a 1 inch circle and have 12 petals out to make your flower.

You need to cut off the bottom pointed end off all 12 of your petals.  You can do it like above....

Or you can gather up a few, fold them over and chop off the end like I do.

This is the shape you want your petals to look like so........

Take one edge of your petal and bring it in to the centre.  And some hot glue along the edge but only going from the bottom and half way up the side of the petal.

Bring the other edge in to meet in the middle.  Give the petal a squeeze to adhere the petal edges to the centre.  Now....I am used to hot glue so my fingers arent as sensitive to the hot glue as they used to be.  So....if you have delicate little pinkies, put the petal on your mat and use tweezers to press down on the petal.  If you are using wet glue, this is the stage where you get out your wee pegs or paper clips to hold the petals in place......stick on some elevator music and drum your fingers on the table whilst you impatiently await glue drying! lol

So, you have glued all your petals together.....now for the putting it together bit....Yeah!  Or is it??  Whether you do this step above or not rather depends on what size you want your flower to be.  I want a smaller flower, therefore I am snipping off the end 1/4 off each petal.  Whether you decide to do this or not...is up to you.

Take your 1st petal and turn it over to the backside.  Place a thin bead of glue along the bottom edge of the petal.

Glue your first 2 petals opposite each other on your little circle of card.  I decided not to glue mine right to the centre of the flower as it would have made the flower a little too small.  But you can glue to the centre if you wish.

Take your 3rd and 4th petal, and glue them opposite each other in the gaps between the first 2 petals.  The 3rd and 4th petal will sit on top of the first 2 petal slightly.

Now take your 5th petal.  It needs to be alternated between the gap between the 2 petals below.  So glue it into one of the gaps.

Take your 6th petal and glue it opposite your 5th.  It should also sit in the gap between the 2 petals below it.

Carry on stacking the petals, between the gaps and opposite each other.

Use all 12 petals and this will give you a beautiful dimensional flower.

Take whatever flower centre you have chosen and glue it to you pretty Petaloop.  And your flower is complete.  Colour it any way you want, use stickles on the petal ends, use glue on the edge and sprinkle glitter on them.  Yum......whatever you want to do, go ahead and pretty em' up.

Heres some different coloured velvet flowers Ive made.  These petals were given to me by the very kind youtuber, Fiona Jennings (Jennings644)  They are so beautiful and soft.  They make beautiful Petaloop.

Here is the side profile.  Isnt it stunning?  I love'm

This is another set of velvet petals Fi gave me.  I need to get some more of these petals.

Side profile.

And another.

This flower is made from the cheapest of the cheap Pound shop petals.  When I use these ones again, I think I will do an extra layer I think.

Side view of the white petal....Pound shop

Ta-Da......yummy flowers

Well thats it for another flower tutorial folks.  I would love it if you made some of these, you would let me know so I can have a wee gander at them.

Hope you have fun making them.  Any questions, just holler!

Toodles Noodles, 

Loops xx