Memory Box

I have a new nephew and he is also my Godson.  Therefore I wanted to make a special present for his parents to use as he grows up.  I decided to decorate a wooden box for them to keep memories and keepsakes in for him.  I used a pallet of brown and blue for this box.

I got a plain wooden box and started gluing papers to it.  I put a layer of matte gel medium by Liquitex onto the box and added scraps of my painted papers.  I went over the top of the papers with the gel medium as well.  I made sure that there were no bubbles and that the papers were stuck down all the way.  I used mono-prints on deli paper and computer paper.  I also used bits of the different papers that I used for cleaning off my stencils.  I like to spray inks through stencils and then flip them onto a piece of paper to clean off the excess spray.  I use these papers for collage later, so I have a large collection of all kinds of papers that are painted.  I keep layering images onto the same piece of paper until I get some interesting papers.  For this project I selected thin papers so that they would be flexible and go over the curves of the box easily.  I covered the majority of the space inside and outside the box.  The only surface that I didn't decorate was the bottom of the box.

I decorated the inside of the box and then the outside so that everything would dry well and nothing would stick.  After all the surfaces were dry I added Metamica paints in Chestnut and Moonlight to the open areas.  I scrubbed the paint out so that I didn't have a lot of harsh lines and everything was blended together.

After all the paint was dry, I used Tam's Whimsy Hearts and Stars stencil to decorate the sides and back of the box with black paint.  For the top of the box I used Tam's Inspiration stencils to add the words "you are loved" in black paint.  On the front of the box I stamped his name in black paint.

When the paint was dry I sketched around the shapes and words with a white Gelly Roll pen.  I added lines inside of everything with a clear star Gelly Roll pen.

I let the box set for a couple of days to make sure that the paint was completely cured and then I sealed the whole box in stages.  I used gloss medium and varnish by Liquitex to seal it.

The box shimmers and shines and will be a great place to store all of those baby milestones and memories when his parents are too busy to fill out the baby book.

I hope that you can find interesting ways to use all of your extra painted papers that mixed media artists seem to collect.

You can see more of my art on my Website: http://www.handsandharts.com

Janelle