Little Black Dress, By Carol fox

Not a dress, but the challenge theme this month is the craft item you could not live without, in my case I cannot live without any of them, so I just dug through my wonderful stash from the happy daze shop and got to work.

This week I am still in love with the multi-medium and distress stain technique so I have made a little gift box using the stains, inks and medium to decorate it.

I co-ordinated the theme of the box to tie in with a pendant I have made using some the the charms and Tim Holtz ideology pieces for sale on the site.

First of all the box. I made the basic box using a box maker and a fairy sturdy card. I cut a piece of card to fit the lid, I first of all inked this using distress inks in chipped sapphire and spiced marmalade. I then choose my stamp. I have used the quote from the Artistic Outpost set Happiness. I put a small splodge of Multi medium onto my craft mat and then "inked up" the stamp with this before stamping it onto the inked square. I them heated this to dry it. Once dry I took my distress stain in dusty concord and applied this over the square of card ensuring that it had a good coverage. The multi medium resists the stain and the quote will show though in the distress ink colour, I love this bit, it's like magic.

I then glued the square to the lid of the box and inked the sides and cut edges of the square with the same distress inks and stain. I then thought it all looked a bit flat so I took my favourite stamp a basic crackle background (great for a filler), inked it up in the spice marmalade and randomly stamped it over the lid and sides.
The Pendant I have used one the large butterfly's as a base for this. (these are so popular that as soon as Moira gets them into stock they are all sold again, so do sign up for the email alerts to be informed when they come back into stock so you don't miss out as they are gorgeous)

I added a Tim Holtz ideology cog to the centre of the butterfly and topped this off with a reclaimed watch cog from my personal stash. I then attached chain to the top parts of the butterfly, adding Tim Holtz Ideology cogs and game spinners as shown, using jump rings to join them all together to form an interesting and decorative chain for the butterfly. This was really quick to make but it looks so effective that it could have taken you hours.

All the DT members are trying on their little black dresses this month and as usual this is linked to the monthly challenge and you can find all the details of this here.