Matchbox Swap

As promised earlier today here are the pics of my project for the Matchbox Swap on the Cricut Message Board. My partner likes all things Asian so I tried to give my box an asian feel.

It started out as a simple matchbox.

I painted the box with black craft paint and the covered it first with a random sheet of Close To My Heart paper and then with panels cut from the DCWV Far East paper stack. I added Kanji symbols from the Pagoda cartridge and a lock from Tim Holtz. The Kanji symbols are for Health, Happiness, and Prosperity.

The top of the box is decorated with a cherry blossom branch from Pagoda and some Tim Holtz fragments backed with some paper from the Far East mat stack to give this a mosaic look.

Inside the box are some little treasures. For this I needed to make 3 stick pins, two flowers, and a charm. This was my first time making any of them but I think they turned out pretty cute.

First the flowers - These were made with Tim Holtz Tissue Tape from this tutorial. The centers are Tim Holtz buttons. They were then lightly inked with TH Red Brick Distress Ink.

For my charm I used a Tim Holtz clasp and some beads and Asian charms I found at Joann's. Oh, and a TH key - there is a "lock" on the front of the box after all! This was first time working with any kind of beads or jewelry stuff and it was an adventure! But it was fun and I will be doing more of this in the future.

And finally - the stick pins. I LOVED making these! They were so fun and there are so many designs you can do with these. I put them in a "matchbook" from the Alphalicious cartridge.

 Inside the box I put a piece of embossed Kwik Cuts metal that I colored with alcohol ink. It just added a fun hidden element (I love hidden elements!).

And of course you can't forget the cute little feet on the bottom of the box!