Treasures of the Sea - Mixed Media Treasure Chest

Hi my lovelies

Thank you for stopping by to take a look. I have a special little project to share, that I have finally finished... Yay!! It's a great feeling!!!

This ended up sitting in my sons room for ages as storage as I was too afraid to do something with it.

After seeing the current challenge over at Finnabair's blog, I set to work straight away (sparkle and shine just seemed to fit for this) and I just had a vision...  however, it didn't come out at all how I thought. :)

I'm still pleased with the finished result:

I kept imagining a very glamorous, but worn and old, mystical sea-weathered chest. Something that would have been truly beautiful, back in the day. 

In my head this has a whole story behind it... it's travels, owners, contents... I could go on, but this is going to be long as it is...

I used Prima Art Basics Black Gesso to prime the whole thing first, then applied Art Basics Texture Paste Crackle in White. Then I applied some fibres, dry wall tape, then I went in with home-made texture paste (see Gabrielle Pollacco's recipe) and applied it thickly to the areas where the metal embellishments were going to be and stuck those into the paste, and used the 'Bubbles' Stencil by Tim Holtz with it.

I used Glass Beads Texture Gel by Galleria all over for extra bubbly texture too. After that had dried I then gave it all a coat of Art Basics Heavy Gesso in White apart from the metal. 

With the crackle I want to go for a faux cracked mother of pearl effect, and built up from this with colours and distressing. Hopefully you can see this in the photos, but clicking and expanding the photo will give you so much more juicy detail in here.

I used Lindy Sprays in:

Long John's Silver
Cosmo Pink
Wild Honeysuckle Coral
Down the Rabbit Hole


Then some Luminarte Silks in:

• Chestnut
• Coral Berry

But kept these mainly to the edges, dragging the colour in.

I went over and hit the raised areas with Treasure Gold White Fire. Then I used Vivo Ferro Paste in Graphite and then hit the edges for a more distressed look and to define the edges, but it also has a beautiful silver sparkle.

After that I used Prima Art Ingredients Glitter Glass in Frosted and Sterling. Then Prima Art Ingredients Art Sugar in Light Pink for extra sparkly goodness. All mixed up in their Soft Matte Gel.

I went over again very lightly with Treasure Gold on the metal embellishments, just bring back a little glint through all the shimmer and glitters. Trying to capture all the shimmery goodness is a little difficult with the camera but promise it is there!! One light (or angle) gives me silver, the other gives me the pinky golds tones, I couldn't quite get my camera to completely play ball. Wherever I moved this too the colours changed (I think because of the shimmer) or if the flash was on. The truest in colour is the top photo :)

If you have stayed with me this far then well done and thank you :), I know this has been a long post, and I try not to write them this long, but there was so much to squeeze in ;)

Thanks for stopping by and as always thank you for your lovely comments, I read all of them and they always mean so much to me.

Take care,
Georgie xx

I'd like to enter this in the following challenges:

Finnabair Blog - Sparkle and Shine Challenge
The Mixed Media Monthly Challenge Blog - Think Pink (Lindy Sprays)
PaperArtsy - Shiny Stuff Challenge