House Kit Vase by Jennie

Hello everyone and welcome to what is a bit of "thinking outside" the box for my project today. 

I am not a great one for New Year Resolutions but I did decide to tidy up my desk and create a better working area with some nice things around me instead of stacked pots of paint, gesso and sprays! So this is the first of three desk tidy projects which I am going to share with you over the next few weeks.

It really doesn't take much imagination to look at many of the Calico Craft Parts kits and visualise them in another form. 

My vase is actually the Tall Block House Kit but without the roof. I really liked the shape and thought it would make a great vase for some of my handmade paper flowers.

I started by glueing three sides together and then painting the inside with acrylic chalk paint.

I knew that my "vase" would need a little bit of help to stop it from falling over when full of flowers and my husband found me this piece of lead in his workshop which fitted perfectly. Now not everyone has that sort of access I realise, but a stone from the garden or beach would make a good substitute.  I glued it in to stop it from rolling around.

After painting the outside in the same acrylic chalk as the inside I layered this rather gorgeous napkin piece across the front and around the sides.  A texture paste word was added on top of this layer before leaving everything overnight to dry.

The next stages seem to happen quite quickly  (although there are some long drying times involved!). All four sides got a coating of DecoArt Crackle Glaze and when this was dry I used DecoArt Antiqueing Cream to highlight the cracks.

Before sealing everything with a coat of DecoArt Matte Varnish I added a little stamping here and there, painted my texture paste word with DecoArt Metallic Gold paint and also added a little gold paint around the edges to make it look time worn.

I really love how even the texture paste takes up the crackle and of course the darker colours of the napkin look most effective.  All these techniques work so well as the MDF will take such a lot of product without any signs of warping.

And so there you have it - my little vase which is just perfect for these handmade paper hellebores and which looks very pretty on my desk.

Thank you so much for joining me today and I look forward to sharing my second desk tidy project in a couple of weeks time. Have a great crafting time till then!

Jennie x

Live The Dream

Calico Craft Parts used:

Block Style Tall House Kit (Medium)

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