Owl Mash Up!!

A'mash up' started as a musical term which describes the blending of two songs very often in very different styles/genres, think ABBA and Black Sabbath...... you get the idea!

This month we are releasing three new collections from Tim Holtz, Prima and Lori Whitlock. I love them all and I want to share as much as I can but time is against us my friends, so I got thinking and.......

Here is a gift box made using the Bigz XL owl bag. It's a really lovely die perfect for party favours and the like and I'm sure you will be seeing it in many magazine projects and in many different colour combinations and materials.

This is a fabulous and super-useful die and as I said above, you will see oodles of pretty owl boxes so I wanted to shake it up a bit and throw in a die from the Prima (Flora Grande) collection. When I say die I am actually referring to a set of dies (nine to be exact) named Rondeaux which are basically, gears with hearts between the spokes in various sizes (I LOVE!!!!!).

I also want to use only one colour, (What!!!) and that colour is black, (Gasp!!!) so I will need a little help from my silver gilding wax (Phew!!!)

I started by die-cutting the four parts to make up the main body of the box from graphite sparkle which is a black heavy weight card with holes drilled through it and is made by Inspire Me Papers, check out the link above. Next, I set about putting the box together which is surprisingly simple as these things can often be quite fiddly! Once it was ready I gently rubbed the edge using the gilding wax, the one I used is called Treasure Pewter you can use a soft cloth but I prefer to use my finger tips which gives you more control but mainly because it smells like boot polish Mmmmmm! 

I Die-cut all the elements to finish the owl and embossed the main body using the Sweet Dots folder from the new Lori Whitlock collection. Next I strategically applied the wax to all the die-cuts except the eyes. and gently curled the three rows of feathers before assembling the owl.

There was still one bit missing, this is where the gears come in. I die-cut two sets to create the eyes and gave them the pewter treatment.

And here is the finished 'Steampunk' owl. For the finishing touches I used screw head brads in the centre of the eyes and mounted both sets of gears with 3D foam pads. I embossed the owls nose using the folder from the new Big Shot starter kit, don't worry if you don't have it there are plenty that will do the job just as well.

Just a reminder, if you want to see a little more of the Prima dies I featured as a guest designer on their blog last week and here is the link. the image below is one of two projects featured.