Vintage Sewing Themed Altered Cigar Box by Nancy

Hi everyone, it's Nancy here!  Today I am sharing an altered cigar box using papers from digital files that I have printed myself.  This coming August,  the Gina's Designs team will be participating in a cross promotional using digital designs by Kitty's Scrap Post.  We were excited to find out that in addition to each of us picking our choice of a digital  kit to work with for our August projects, all of us received the French Seamstress Kit as an extra bonus.   When I saw this gorgeous French Seamstress kit,  I just knew I had to combine the papers with Gina's sewing themed chipboard shapes.  A match made in Crafty Heaven!

 I'd been wanting a box to store my vintage Czech glass button collection and other sewing related collectibles I have accumulated, so I dug out this cigar box from my stash, and went to work.  I'm so happy with the way it turned out.  The box measures 7" x 7.5" x 4" deep.

I began by covering the box both inside and out, even the bottom got papered.  The best thing about digital papers is that you can print them as many times as you want to.  Just look how pretty the images are in this collection!

After the box was papered, everything got two coats of matte Mod Podge so the box can be wiped clean with a wet cloth.  Several techniques (as described below each photo) were used to decorate the chipboard shapes.

The dressform on the top of the box was embossed with Stampendous Shabby Pink Embossing Powder.  Closeup view of the top below:

Aren't the papers gorgeous!  In addition to the dressform, I simply added a few Recollections flowers and fabric leaves.

On the front of the box I added more chipboard shapes and a few buttons to blend in with the button print on the paper.  Here the chippies were painted with Folk art acrylics.  Metal bookplate by Recollections and metal feet by Tim Holtz were painted with gesso and green acrylic paint.

On this side of the box I added the button border from Gina's Designs, and embossed it with Stampendous Shabby White, Pink, and Blue alternately.

On this side, I added a skeleton clock and clock hands embossed with Stampendous Shabby White embossing powder.  The chipboard clock mimics the clock and clock hands design on the paper.

On this side, I added scissors and another dressform.  The dressform is embossed with Shabby Blue, and the scissors with Shabby Marine (handles) and with a brass color embossing powder for the blades.

Here's a view of the inside! I'm all ready to add my collection of buttons and things!

Closeup of the inside lid.  On these shapes,  I have painted first with Gesso, stamped with a script stamp and then inked with pale pink and pale blue inks from Recollections new Vintage Romance collection of products.

Inside of the box at the bottom is another gorgeous design from the kit.  It was so hard to decide which paper to use on the top!

I hope you like my project, and be sure to visit us at Gina's Designs, and also check out all the gorgeous digital paper collections at Kitty's Scrap Post.

Gina's Designs Products Used:

Vintage Seamstress Shape Set

Button Border

Dressforms 1 Shape Set

Dressforms 2 Miniature Shape set

Skeleton Clocks

Clock Hands Shape Set

Other:

Digital Design Papers by Kitty's Scrap Post

French Seamstress Kit