Botanist Nook by Rachel Harries

From the start please forgive the milky nature of the adhesive in the hanging bottle but as I tend to make my blog post entries as I do them this one hasn't completely dried yet, it will eventually be clear with just the Gritty Bitz showing.

I start off with a mini shrine this week.

I put the back box of the shrine together, as I was doing this I realised my Crop A Dile  would not be able to access the portion of the box top I wanted so before I stuck the box top on I used a Crop A Dile to make some holes for me to dangle things from.

I then gave a coat of gesso to the interior of the box and the front of the shrine.

In the absence of resin this week I got my air dry clay out, not all air dry clays are created equal and if you haven't had success previously please don't be perturbed you can get some great results. The most important thing is to make sure your clay isn't too wet and sticky, if it is just leave it on the side for a while to dry up a little, check on it to make sure you don't get it too dry but this is something I have found that has made a massive difference to my enjoyment of air dry clays.

I then made a selection of pieces from moulds and adhered them to the front of the shrine.

I took a small glass bottle and squirted a little adhesive into it, I then made a little funnel from some cardboard and poured in some Britty Bitz, then I used tweezers to pop a bit of green plant like stuff I had into the adhesive.

At this point I also added some gritty stuff to the bottom of the box and also I dipped some cocktail sticks into adhesive and then into the Gritty Bitz.

Once the clay was dry on the front of the shrine, I used three different shades of green plain and metallic paint.

I also paint the bottom of the cocktail sticks.

I use the PaperArtsy Lynne Perrella collection stamp to stamp out a couple of images that seem to suite this project and then I use That's Crafty! inks in a mixture of satin and pearl to colour them and then cut them out.

I also use the inks to paint the edges of the backboard of the box and also the tops of the cocktail stick flowers.

I then add the pieces to my shrine giving a little padding to one of the pieces with some scrap cardboard to create dimension.

I add two of the cocktail stick flowers through the holes in the top of the box and two into the little jar. I the tie string around the jar and pop that through a hole in the top I pop some glue around the holes to keep everything in place.

I use a selection of waxes on the front of the shrine and adhere it to the back box.

I also added a greyboard key which I painted and added a little wax to and that is my project complete, as I mentioned the glue will eventually dry clear in the glass jar which will give a much more pleasing look. I hope you like this project.

That's Crafty! Surfaces MDF Shrine Pack
That's Crafty Gritty Bitz
PaperArtsy Lynne Perrella Stamps
That's Crafty! Greyboard Keys and Locks
Air Dry Clay
Moulds
That's Crafty! Inks
Metallic Paints
Waxes
That's Crafty! Multi Surface Paint
That's Crafty! Adhesives