That's Crafty!: Pimp Your Own Storage Box by Amanda Southern

Hi Everyone

For this weeks post I am sharing with you my take on the That's Crafty! MDF stencil holder. This is a large storage unit, at 13.2in x 8 x 5, that will hold a lot of stencils but could be also used for storing lots of other things, it really is a useful piece of storage and even better in that you can decorate it any way you like.

Here's What I Did:

This really is a quick piece to put together however I decorated it piece prior to glueing it all together. I wanted to give the storage box the impression of being a window box so I gave the MDF a painted wooden effect. To create the effect I first gave the MDF a covering of white gesso and then I painted on a top coat of White Multi Surface Paint. Then using Chestnut Brown Multi Surface Paint and a dry paintbrush, I use a really old paintbrush, I lightly dry brush the brown paint onto the white painted surface to give the impression of the wood showing through so the painted surface looks weathered.

To create the plank effect I drew on lines with a brown Sharpie pen. I then glued all the pieces together and used some large elastic bands to hold it in place whilst the glue dried.

You can see here that the storage box has a fabulous picket fence front which is a lovely addition and perfect to grow flowers up.

The flowers that decorate the front of mine are the fabulous tulip stamps designed by Melina Dahl and these are a large stamp. I stamped the tulip out whilst my stamping card was in a stamping platform and leaving it in place after stamping I coloured the flower using Multi Surface Paint again blending together Magenta and White to get the variegated look. Once I was happy I re stamped the detail back in which goes perfectly in place because you haven't removed your card from the platform. The leaves, which are a separate stamp from the same set, were stamped onto a piece of card that I had randomly covered in various shades of green paint from the PaperArtsy Fresco paint range and cut out.