Eileen Hull Designs Pitted Enamel Treasure Box

Hi everyone and welcome. As Eileen Hull's Inspiration Team celebrate the release of her new Sizzix Chapter 1 Scoreboards Dies releases - 'Treasure Box' and 'Stacking Drawers' - we have been sharing lots of new projects to showcase some of the possibilities for using them. Make sure to check them all out on Eileen's website HERE.

For my project this month I created a 'Treasure Box' with a pitted enamel finish which owes itself entirely to a fantastic tutorial by Brenda Brown (Bumblebees and Butterflies) which can be found on her blog HERE.

The box started with a sheet of 12 inch square piece of smooth card onto which I pulled a mottled Gel Plate print in shades of Umber, Sterling, Sedona and White from Dina Wakley's Acrylic Paint range. The card was cut in two and glued to some 6 inch wide pieces of mountboard before being covered with a couple of coats of thin gloss varnish. Given what happened later I would omit using the varnish in future.

From these two pieces of 6 x 12 inch mounted card I was easily able to cut the sides, lid and base of the 'Treasure Box' with Eileen's Scoreboards XL Die from Sizzix, all of which matched up beautifully and were scored by the die ready for easy assembly. Once put together the varnished finish on the box looked a little flat and uninteresting.

Luckily at this point Brenda shared her wonderful Pitted Enamel tutorial so I decided to give it a go. Brenda shares the ingredients needed to get the perfect finish on her blog - I kept mine simple by using Umber paint in the pits and on the edges of the box. Remember I mentioned not using varnish in future? That's because a varnished finish doesn't grab the heated powder and paint in quite the same way and can lead to some of it peeling off but it's a good lesson learned.

To secure the lid in place I added a couple of bronze tone hinges from The Funkie Junkie Boutique using brads. You can see that Pitted Enamel surface and the pattern on the base card in more detail here.

On the front of the lid more brads were used to secure a coordinating bronze tone mini box handle, again from The Funkie Junkie Boutique.

To add a little decoration on the box lid I kept it relatively simple, layering up some branches from Eileen's 'Birds & Butterflies' Thinlits Die Set (coloured with Umber and White paint) floral arches and little flowers from Eileen's 'Floral Arch & Words' Thinlits Die Set (coloured with Olive and Turquoise paint) and leaves from Eileen's 'Journaling Cards Flowers & Leaves' Thinlits Die Set (coloured with Sedona paint).

Finally one of those happy accidents - last year in a clear out I came across some old 3 x 5 inch index cards which fit perfectly inside the finished box. It will provide the ideal place to store seed packets, plant tags and notes about the upkeep of the garden.

That's it for this month's Eileen Hull Designs project from me. Make sure to check out the projects from the talented members of Eileen's Inspiration Team on her website HERE.

Thanks for visiting,
Jenny xxx