This week I have another project with the latest release from That's Crafty! to share, this time the gorgeous set of house shaped desk tidies which as you'll see can fit all sorts of things from pens to paintbrushes and tools as well.

The first thing I did was to glue all the houses together except the house shaped front piece, as I wanted to add quite a bit of texture to the sides and back. Once all the pieces were firmly stuck, I took the gorgeous new masks designed by Melina and applied a pattern to the sides and back of each piece with Black Texture Paste.

I next painted the entire boxes inside and out with a dark Multi Surface Paint, choosing Midnight, Evergreen and Chestnut Brown.

I applied a coat of Crackle Glaze to the sides and back and once the surface was tacky, painted over the top using a toning lighter shade - Light Blue on the dark blue, Lime and Green on the Deep Green and Apricot on the brown. Crackle appeared very quickly giving a lovely textured look.

I painted the front sections in the same colours on both sides and applied Crackle Glaze to the front with the same lighter shade on top to give each one a textured look to match the rest of the box. I glued these in place. I painted all the windows and doors in the same dark shade as the inside, only varying the shades on the lintels etc. I glued these in place to finish.

How cute is that cat in the window! All the little finishing touches really make this such a lovely project to do and the variations are endless. Do take a look at the That's Crafty! Facebook page and of course, the blog posts for even more inspiration.

Have a great weekend and see you next week.