Brocanterie Window - by Alison

Hello everyone, it's Alison here again from Words and Pictures, and today I've got a little antique shop window to share with you.  Well, it's more of a Brocanterie really.  Brocantes is such a useful French word - somewhere between antiques and flea-market finds... not as upmarket as antiques, but nicer than thinking about fleas!

I used one of the fantastic Shrine Kits to create my shop window.  I hope you saw Trish's fantastic Keeper of Hearts last week using one of the medium sized Display Kits... well, this is the same simple arch design, Style 2, but in the smallest size (this one is 12x7x3cm).  And if you want to go large with your project, you can choose one of the Cubby Kits.  Several of my fantastic team-mates have been playing with the various kits, and you can see just how versatile they are from how different all the creations are!

The kits come in pieces, but assembly is pretty straightforward.

If you want to cover the pieces with design papers, that's best done before you glue the thing together.  I wanted papers for the inside of my shadow box, so I glued those down, taking care to get them on the right side of each piece.

You also want to avoid papering the "teeth of the combs" along the edges - those are going to slot into each other, so you don't want the extra thickness of the paper in the way.

Once that was done, I glued together the walls and the back, but left the front cover off for the time being.

I painted the exterior with layers of DecoArt paint and crackle mediums, starting with the Chalk paints line, adding some Media Line crackle paint over those, a coat of Ultra Matte Varnish to seal it (so that the precious crackle won't flake off), and then some Raw Umber to add shading around the edges and corners.

I also added a wash of chalky white to the interior walls, and some Raw Umber shading to darken the corners of my dusty little antique shop.

The kits also come with little circular feet.  You don't have to put them on at all if you don't want to, and you also have some leeway as to how long you make the legs.  I did a two layer version, then just glued the little circles to the bottom of the shrine to raise it a little way.

For the inside I gathered a motley little collection.  Against the back wall you can see the gorgeous Calico Craft Parts Candelabra (strictly that's probably one candelabrum!).  This is Candelabra Style 1 out of a whole collection of Chandeliers and Candelabra - well worth checking out.

And mounted on the wall there's also one of the delicious Mini Butterfly Wood Shapes, which has had a coat of DecoArt Crackle Paint.

I also used crackle glaze and paint on the little china doll, and filled a glass vial with tiny copper beads cut from a bead chain.  There are some other metal bits and bobs if you rummage around - old keys, bulbs and pocket watches, as well as some wooden bobbins and an antique picture frame.  Looks like a bargain... snap it up while you can!

I altered my Word Band with DecoArt paints in Raw Umber and Red Iron Oxide as well as some granules of embossing powder for a rusty texture, and it's bound on with good old rusty wire.

I hope you've enjoyed browsing amongst the remnants in the brocanterie - it's always great to hear what you think.  If you'd like to have a play with any of the Calico Craft Parts I've mentioned you can click on the links in the text to go straight there.  In the meantime I'll wish you a wonderful week, and I'll see you again soon.

Alison xx