Autumnal Fairy Light by Astrid

Today I want to share a little night light I made using one of the gorgeous ATB Craft Parts. I am using the one with the Arch shaped aperture. They come in a set of 3 and I used the largest one of the set.

Now if you are one of those people that owns the original Eileen Hull ATB die, you may ask yourself, - do I really need one of these?.... Well I am lucky enough to own the die, but I tell you, these cube kits are brilliant, easy to put together and so sturdy, you can alter them in ways that would be almost impossible with one that you cut yourself!
Anyway, I'll give you a quick step by step of how I made this one.

I started by edging all of the parts with black gesso and then lined the bottom and 3 of the sides with pieces of scrapbook paper.

Next I fitted the cube together and then painted the whole of the outside first with  Black gesso and when dry with Decoart Media line Burnt Umber acrylic paint. When that had dried I gave everything a very rough coat of Decoart Crackle paint, spreading it unevenly on purpose, so I would have large and smaller cracks. Finally I painted around the edges with more of the Burnt Umber, spritzt with water to let the paint seep into the crack and then scraped and sanded a bit off the edges for a distressed look. I wanted a kind of tree bark effect.

I hope these close ups show the effect of the crackle and paint a bit better. There is no way you could do this with a cube made from card, as no doubt it would start to warp.

Don't get me wrong, I love making ATBs from card too, and they are great for sending in the post, but the wood cubes are great for projects like this.

To decorate my cube, I stamped and fussy cut a fairy (the stamp is by La Blanche), coloured him with watercolour pencil and then cut a little card wedge to make it possible to glue him to the top of my lantern.
Next I chose some craft parts and other bits and pieces to decorate the rest of the cube.
On the top I used these

little pumpkins. They come in outline only, but because I wanted them a bit more solid I painted some orange card and just glued them on top and then cut around the edges. I tucked them in between some other little autumnal pieces from my stash and also added one of the lovely Oakleaf Branches.
I love how the Craft Parts can be combined with die cuts and other embellishments to great effect.

I coloured them very lightly with Distress Markers, just to give them a hint of colour.

The front was further decorated with Ivy Leaf garlands Style 1 and 2, and again lightly coloured with Distress Markers.

Now all that was needed to finish it off was a little LED tea light. I coloured the sides of it with more brown paint, as the stark white looked a little odd.

And voila, one little lantern that can be used as a child's night light or to decorate the table of a harvest meal.

Thanks for visiting like always and hopefully see you next time.