My Art Project - The Serbian Box

I made a very special present for my best friend, for an anniversary. Since he is from Serbia, I chose to base my design on the Serbian flag, which features a coat of arms on a background of red, blue and white stripes. I used a box that he actually gave me for my birthday that had chocolates in it. It's a white box with a red stripe around the side, so the colors are already perfect.

In the first picture, you can see that I have already drawn the coat of arms from the flag, and I am in the process of coloring it--the red and blue parts are done, but it still needs the yellow parts. Also in the picture, you can see some red and blue papers, and I am going to use these to make the stripes.

In this photo, you can see that I have taken the red paper and blue paper that I said I was going to use to make the stripes of the Serbian flag on the box. I marked the lid of the box into three equal parts, and then used the decoupage technique, in which I painted a clear liquid glue / lacquer over the paper to adhere it to the box and also to coat it with a clear, shiny finish.

But I didn't want to just make plain stripes. Using paint samples, I selected red colors that were similar to the red that I wanted but slightly different shades. I cut them up with scissors into small pieces of varying shapes, and then I used more glue to stick them down and coat them. As you can see in this picture, the red stripe is complete. It looks like a mosaic, but just using paper and glue instead of using tiles and grout.

For the white stripe, I knew white paper wouldn't be enough of a contrast with a white background, so to make it more of a nod to actual mosaic work, I painted the stripe a light grey color that looks a bit like grout, and then I did the pieces in white. There are slight variations in the tones of white, as well. I wanted the colors to vary a little to make it more like the random broken tiles used in mosaic, but not TOO much, because I also wanted to preserve the integrity of the flag's colors and design.

I really enjoyed working on this, and especially using the "paper mosaic" technique, which I thought up several years ago when I received several books of paint samples and was thinking about how to use them. I only just this past year got around to doing it!

 After I finished the stripes, I went back to the crest and crown that I had drawn and colored in, and I carefully cut them out and placed them on top of the stripes, situated just like it is on the flag of Serbia.

It created a nice three-dimensional effect, with the base color on the surface of the box, and then the paper "tiles" on top of that, and the crest on top of that. I glued the crest and crown in place and sprayed everything with a coating of clear gloss protector. The box had become surprisingly heavier with all those layers, even though they were just paper!

I think the finished product turned out really well, and when I gave it to my friend, he loved it! He just couldn't stop looking at it the whole time, and he showed it to his friends and family, and they like it, too. As a gift, it was very successful, and as an art project, it was wonderfully fun to do and came out as I'd hoped. It was my first time trying this technique, and I'm looking forward to doing more work in this way.

Images are my own photos of my original work. Click to enlarge! 

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"Little Angels" Craft Project - Cheap Christmas Gift Idea

These are pictures of my craft project, "Little Angels", in progress. To decorate this plaque, I found a plastic candy mold that had little angel faces and bodies, but instead of using it to mold chocolates, I mixed up some plaster of paris and poured into the molds to make a little girl and boy angel and an angel face. When the plaster dried, I popped the forms out of the mold and painted them with acrylic paint.

To make the plaque itself, I used a piece of wood that I had cut to length (I purchased a larger piece and had several small pieces cut) at a hardware store, but you could also purchase a pre-made, unfinished plaque at a crafts store. I painted a blue sky background and added clouds with acrylic paint. I painted clouds for the boy and girl angels to sit on, and glued down the plaster angels in place. I put hangers on the back of the plaque, and now it is ready to be developed further. I could either use small hooks to make it a key holder, or larger hooks to let it hold towels or jackets. I also left space to personalize it with names or with a saying.

These plaques take a little while to make, but they are a lot of fun! You can find reusable candy molds of many different designs in most craft stores, and plaster of paris is a very inexpensive material--you can mix as much or as little as you want. It takes several steps to assemble a plaque like this, but it is very inexpensive. This is a great Christmas gift idea, isn't it? Everyone loves a handmade gift, especially one that is especially made for them. I think a child would love to have a personalized hanger for his or her jacket or bag.

My own photos - click to enlarge!

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