Altered Bird boxes with Tutorial

Hi guys, I bought two boxes from The Range with the idea to alter them,

I have seen some gorgeous creations using this sort of style especially from Dorota and she inspired me to have a go too,

I have done a little step by step on how I have gone about it, so warning quite a few photo's so maybe you want to grab a brew and a biccie first!! 😊

First I gave them both a couple of coats of white Gesso,

As you can see they have a star and a heart on the front, I wanted to make these stand out so I made my own embellishments to go on the top of them,

I found some dies in my stash to fit the shape on the box and a slightly larger one as shown, I placed them onto a magnetic mat so they staid in place while they went through my die cutting machine, I first cut them out using some cardboard from an old package, then again with some Tim Holtz Ideaology Grunge paper, this doesn't cut very well so I ran it through a few times then trimmed what was left with my scissors,

Glue the chipboard one and the Grunge paper one together, 

when dry glue these onto the boxes,

then go over with some Dutch Doobadoo structure paste, dabbing it on with a knife, so you get a rough uneven texture, let this dry, it may take a while depending on the depth of your paste!!

Hopefully you can see the texture on this photo!!!

I left these to dry, and went onto decorating the sides,

I took a brick stencil and some Grunge Paste which I put through the stencil randomly here and there with my knife, the while it was still wet, I put some Stampendous aged ivory embossing enamel over the top, then I went over with my heat gun, this makes the base structure paste bubble slightly which I think adds to the texture and it also sets the embossing enamel over the top too,

I  placed some cheesecloth randomly on the tops,

Now for the fun part!!!!! I finished them off with  a little crackle glaze and some foam balls in two sizes, which I stuck on with some mat medium from my stash, these again take a little while to dry, so do a section at a time,

Meanwhile I made a Poinsettia flower with some Foamiran and coloured with some distress ink,

I  heat set them then shaped them and layered them up, adding some gold coloured stamens from my stash, when I had made them I decided to add a little stickles on the edges of the petals too,

I then added some Scrapiniec chipboard which I again covered with the Frantage and added some Pomegranate Apples from my stash, finally adding the flower on one side of the box,

This is one of the other sides, using the foam balls again, some chipboard and one of the bark stars which came in my Yuletide collection from Crafteezee at Noor Design UK,

This is the flower on the other box, again I used  the chipboard, foam balls and Pomegranate Apples and some of the smaller bark stars again from the Yuletide kit,

Are you ready for the front view? 👀

The top sections were finished off with some gorgeous chipboard pieces from Monika at

 love to craft and create, I kept these in their natural colour,

I took some  Dusty Attic chipboard bricks in my stash and painted them with white gesso, then adhered them onto the front sections, with some more foam balls and some tiny Gypsophila type flowers from my stash plus a molded bird which the lovely Bev sent me, finishes the boxes off,

The front sections of these boxes remove to add a battery tealight in, doing the decorating this way means I can still do this too,

Let me know what you think,

Challenges
Noor Design UK - Sparkle
Deep Ocean - Santa is coming to town
Dusty Attic December mood board - (I've taken my inspiration from the home theme and verse, be your own kind of beautiful)
Frilly and Funky - home for the Holidays

Happy Crafting!!