Matchbox Madness!

Who knew altering matchboxes could be so much fun! I've had a great time getting to know some wonderfully mad people during the Matchbox Shrine swap on UK Scrappers.
Having checked out the swap and googled matchbox shrines, I thought this would be a piece of cake. Boy was I wrong! Firstly I signed up to swap 2 matchboxes, so twice the amount of work. Then I had creative block for weeks on end, my house is still littered with half-painted matchboxes as I bought several each of 3 different sizes to try out.

I was fascinated by all the different styles and interpretations of matchbox art that people made for this swap. What a creative bunch! I wanted to keep to the shape of the matchbox and the drawer-style opening rather than altering the boxes too much. I remembered making little paper theatres as a child, with layers of scenery and different characters, and I took inspiration from those for my boxes. I used two lovely Graphic 45 paper collections: Curtain Call and Halloween in Wonderland, with background papers from DCWV. I found the neatest finish on the boxes was to use black spray paint as an undercoat, and cutting panels of card for each side. The panels on the front of the boxes were mounted onto chipboard and my black inkpad got a good workout all over!

 I then set about cutting and layering all the internal pieces using a combination of foam pads and folded card posts, finishing with borders to enclose everything. With the music hall box, I added the same ribbon I'd used on the top of the box to make little theatre curtains.

I absolutely loved both the swaps I received in return, one (in fact, two) from Bex which has a saucy Burlesque theme, which is full of lovely touches and can be seen HERE , and one from Karen which is HERE that is a wonderful steampunky grungy number, full of lovely details and made to hang on the wall. Thank you both so much, and extra thanks to Bex for hosting the swap xxx


Edited to add: Link to Karen's matchbox :)