Medium time reader, first time poster.

[big-girl.livejournal.com]

Someone in my own personal journal pointed me in this direction a few months ago and I've been oohhing, ahhing and cribbing ever since. Now I figured I'd post something to earn my keep.

It started innocently enough with my very first e-bay purchase of a bunch of assorted cigar boxes.
I got all of these for less than 10 bucks including shipping!


First I did a little decoupaging and painting and sprayed it all with a nice, shiny acrylic finish and ended up with this:


Then a failed experiment with some stones I got from the 99 cent store, some stenciling and, well. . .


Some of the box lids are held together by paper. I found this out the hard way after I struggled for days to get the paper off the box and then the lid came off. Oh well lemons, lemonade and these:


I saw this faux-leather technique used on a table and tried it on a box. Plain brown paper bags (or brown kraft paper) glued on in layers. Another layer of glue-- I used watered down Elmer's--, some wood stain (this is warm walnut, I believe) and some brass looking thumbtacks.

For my twin's birthday I mosaic-ed two boxes with their initials and put their presents inside.


And then I had some tile and that horrible black grout left over and made this:



Phew! That's a lot of coding. Crossing my fingers that it came out all right.