~ Altered Stationary Caddy ~

Hello Blog Friends on this Friday evening....

This is / was, one of my Caddies that I hold my stationary and essential Tools and Mc-afters in. But it was somewhat outdated in its appearance and was in need of a serious make over! I have had an idea of how I wanted it to look for a while and had even started with the priming with Gesso and texture work with a Prima Brick Stencil and Texture Paste...and then I hit a brick wall, for although I had the idea in my head, practically I was at a loss of how to proceed. 

Then the uber talented Heather Jacob posted her Altered Rustic Clock and the wheels in  my head started spinning! After begging some tips from Heather, which she so graciously shared with me, I was of to a flying start! Well, not that flying, for I had to work on it in drips and drags...but finally it is finished and I am SOOO happy with it!

It is now a Grungy, heavily distressed work of Art...and I am going to love working with it daily...Yes...I am going to use it, meaning there will certainly be scrapes and peeling, but fortunately my bottles of Distress Paints are at hand to patch them up. Out of respect for Heather, I will not go into details of the steps I took to get the overall look, but just know that a lot of Gesso, Crackle Paint, Distress Stains and Paints were used to get the colouring right.

I unfortunately don't have any step-by-step photos, but what I basicly did was to sand the caddy somewhat, then I applied a layer of Gesso to the entire caddy. I did the stencilling with the Prima Brick mask and Texture Paste. Then all the painting and misting happened. I just kept going over and over with different colours until I was satisfied with the look. I also used crackle paint at various places, and just went over that with some brown ink once it was dried.

Out with the old....

...In with the new!!!

Hubby was so kind too adhere these Tim Holtz wheels for me...Love the Industrial Look it gives. On the front of the lid I placed a Keyhole from The Locket Keys set.

I glued some gauze on the drawers with Modge Podge. I painted the metal corner pieces with Distress Paints: Broken China, Forest Moss and Black Soot, and a little Stampendous Aged black Embossing Enamel. All my metal pieces were treated in this manner. Everything was adhered with Ranger Inkssentials Glossy Accents and my hot glue gun.

Label Pulls are now handles for my drawers.

The Lid

On the lid I have an Ornate Bookplate, some Pen nibs, Sproket Gears and Foliage pieces. Please click to zoom in if you want a closer look at all the grungyness...

 

Of course I had to go and forget to gesso the lid as well...Hehehe, so once I applied the crackle paint, my paintwork started to crack and lift! Glossy Accents came to the rescue and I now have some 'lovely' big cracks on my lid...! All those small patches are glued and saved separately...

I was very generous with the crackle medium on this piece...resulting in a lovely aged look.

The 'Forest' side...

This side is my favourite...it came out exactly as I envisioned it to look! Here one can see that I also stencilled the brick pattern on the sides of the drawers as well. I was very generous with the texture paste, resulting in my having to sand away in order for the drawers to open and close in the end... I had a few face slap moments whilst doing this caddy...who knows, if I ever do another one, I will hopefully remember all the mistakes...I used two Prima Vine flowes on both sides of the Caddy.

Another Ornate Bookplate painted with the Distress Paints and Aged Black Enamel. What I was most impressed with the Paints is that once it is dry, it is permanent, meaning it did not bleed and held it's colour once I added the crackle Paint!

Now Umbrella Man had quite some work on him...I die cut several layers at once with my Die...the beauty of the steel Dies is that one can do several layers at once. I did a layer of grunge paper, black and cream card stock and a patterned paper from Tim's paper stash. Then I went ahead and did some paper piecing...not a favourite pastime of mine, but it had to be done for Mr Umbrella Man!

I salvaged the fence from my scraps box, being left over from a previous project. It is also a foil covered piece of grunge paper that was Die cut with the "On the Fence" edge Die from Tim Holtz and coloured with various colours of Alcohol Inks.

I created a Tail-coat for him by Die cutting another foil covered grunge paper, embossed it and the umbrella with my clock embossing folder from Sizzix. Then inked it with the Distress Paints and rubbed some black paint on the raised areas...also added a Spinner for added detail!

My little forest consists of two rows of grunge paper "Tree Line" Die cut pieces. I first gave them a generous dabbing of Coarse Texture gel, applying it with my fingers to form some peaks. After drying I coloured them with Distress Stains, Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint. On the edges I used some Black Soot and Walnut Stain Distress Paint and on the back row I dabbed some Picket Fence paint to lighten them...

Some Sprocket Gears and spinners painted and crackled with a final coating of Vintage Photo Distress Stain.

The Back...

Do not have to much going on in the back. I have a Word Band highlighting the words with Picket Fence Stains and some crinkle ribbon coloured with Stains.

The Potting Shed...

Whilst Mr Umbrella Man was wandering though the woods, Lady Victoria was patting away in her garden ...She was dressed for the occasion in an appliquéd dress from Tresors de Luxe using the lovely White Venice Bridal Guipure Lace, decorated with pink half Pearls and a Bodice created with a Heart Appliqué in Ivory and Pink...

 An ornament created by gluing a bird cage onto a metal medallion and a Foliage Flower all once again painted and crackled...

Some wooden pots were turned into clay pots with coloured texture paste, I simply added a drop or two of Vintage Photo re-inker to the paste, and textured it with a scrap piece of fruit bag...Some Prima flowers, Aaron Lilies and a broom do sweep away the dust.

I even tried my hand at the "Faux Cracked Glass" technique taught by Tim in his Creative Chemistry 102 class...

Thank you for visiting my blog, hope you enjoyed the transformation of my little Caddy...I got the most amazing responds on my Facebook wall and at Paper People and really appreciate all the lovely comments left for me...

Wishing you all a creative weekend!

There is no doubt that 

creativity is the most important 

human resource of all.

 Without creativity,

 there would be no progress,

 and we would be forever

 repeating the same patterns.