Done with time to spare!

All finished with plenty of time to spare!  I'm super happy with how they turned out.  Two boxes have a green base coat and two have a red base.  All four have different trims and all the linens are different.  I lined all of them with a hand made marbled paper in green.  I also went to a glass artist and made a glass ornament to put in each box.  :-)  I'm confident that my family will love it.  I'm sad however, two of my siblings are saying they are done with our tradition.  We've done this for over 20 years and it's been a lot of fun.  We decided we would take a vote on Wednesday but I'm pretty sure I'll loose but we did agree to circle back in a year and take another vote 

I had a question last week regarding the waxing of the paper mache boxes.  I follow the steps from a box that Blackbird Designs did in 2006 called Secret Garden (it was a Loose Feathers).  I take a paper mache box and paint it with two coats of a base acrylic paint then give it a third (and maybe fourth) coat of the top color.  After it's all dry I buff off enough of the top color so the base color shows through.  It also gives it a nice smooth finish.  The I wax it all with brown shoe wax and buff it until is shines.  I use Kiwi Wax.  You can see in the photo below, it totally enhances the final look of the box. 

New start

I started on one of the new Shepherd's Bush kits this week.  This one is Goodness and Grace.  It's a good start for only a couple of train rides this week.  I'm still working on getting my boxes completed for Christmas - I should be totally finished by the end of the weekend.  I have all my supplies in hand and it's going well.  The boxes are painted and tonight I'll stain and wax them.  I'll post photos when they are complete.

All done! Blackbird's Winter Delivery Finis

Blackbird Designs - Blackbird Delivery

Recommended floss

Silkweaver's 32 count Solo

I just finished up my fourth Blackbird's Winter Delivery.  I've ordered the hand marbled paper for the interior and I'm hoping it comes in the mail today.  I'll get the boxes painted and waxed and I'd love to have the boxes completed by the end of the weekend.  Yeah!  I'm going to finish in plenty of time and I won't have to stress about anything but getting them wrapped in pretty Christmas paper. 

Have a great weekend!

Three down! Blackbird's Winter Delivery finis

Blackbird's Winter Delivery

Blackbird Designs

Recommended Floss

R&R 32 count linen

 

Number three is in the books!  Now that I'm close to having four finished, it seems unlikely that I will stitch one for myself.  Very bored with this design.  :-)  So far this is my favorite but the last one will be up there also as I found a Silkweavers Solo that I loved and really like how it is turning out. 

 

I picked up the paper mache boxes from Hobby Lobby over the weekend and will start to paint those this week.  I should be done by the end of the weekend!  That is if I go with fabric for the interior rather than paper as I haven't purchased the paper yet.  I'm leaning toward just doing it in fabric so I can be done. 

 



Here are the three completed deliveries. 

And number four on the Silkweavers 32 count solo.  Love it.

Have a great week and thanks for stopping by!

a slight delay

I was hoping to have number three done a couple of days ago.  However I was sidelined by a case of food poisoning the entire long weekend.  I went to lunch with a friend on Friday and by dinnertime was down until Monday.  :-(  Bummer.  I'm hoping to get this one finished up by the end of the weekend - if would be great to get these four done by mid-December.  Then I can breath and move onto something that I really want to be working on.