"Red Cardinal Pine Cone" - Wood Box

  © All Rights Reserved

© All Rights Reserved

(Click on image to enlarge)

I made a Northern Cardinal bird, pine cone, and red berry wood box, using a playing card box.

I created this using a 3-ply paper Christmas napkin, which I separated to use only the ply with the image on it. I removed all of the box hardware first. Then I painted the box using Apple Barrel Antique Parchment and let it dry. Next I used Liquitex Matte Gel as my decoupage medium, and put the napkin onto the box top and sides of the top. I used plastic wrap to press down on the napkin, and also used a brayer across the top of the plastic wrap that was on top of the napkin. (See: How To Decoupage with Paper Napkins (plastic wrap tip). )

Once that was dry, I applied one coat of Liquitex Gloss Gel as a sealer. I was happy to see that the napkin ink didn't run when I did that. But the coat dried with brush strokes that could be felt, so I did the second coat using Delta Ceramcoat Gloss Interior Varnish as the sealer.

I decided to use parts of the napkin as inner panels in the bottom inside of the playing card box. I used the same decoupage steps as above. However, for the first coat of sealer, I used the Delta Ceramcoat Gloss Interior Varnish as the sealer, and the ink ran. It wasn't too bad, and gave it a somewhat distressed look, which I was okay with.

But it was a lesson learned: from now on, use Liquitex Gloss Gel as the first coat for the sealer, so the ink doesn't run, then use the Delta Ceramcoat Gloss Interior Varnish as the second coat, to get a smoother finish without brush strokes in it.