An introduction to Altered Art - Secret Santa 2010

I'm going back in time for today's post but wanted to share with you what I believe was my introduction to Altered Art.  It was a natural progression in my crafty journey which started with cards during a period living in the USA back in 2000/2001, then after very many years (almost a decade) I finally made a move to try Scrapbooking and very quickly from there on to ATC's, Tag's and Altered Art.  Really the later came about after joining the Bramford crop and becoming involved in the girls monthly challenges.

So 2010 saw my first Secret Santa with the Bramford crop girls and it was all about altering boxes.  As I said this was my first real experience of Altered Art.  We picked names out of the hat and I was making mine for Nancy (http://kittyscrapper-nancy.blogspot.com).  The girls told me where I could find plain wooden boxes and the shape I chose came as a set of 2, one larger box with a smaller one inside.  I knew that this would take some time to complete but had the opportunity to undertake the challenge whilst at my annual Belstead House weekend in the November.

I decided to alter the smaller of the 2 boxes as it seemed such a large project for me to complete anyway.  At this point my Altered Art stash was limited with no paints so my first challenge was how to cover the box...in the end I used a brown paper bag, I usually get these bags when purchasing my crafting goodies from the Papermaze (http://www.papermaze.co.uk) shop and they just cry out to be altered in my opinion.  As you can see I used loads of Tim Holtz products on this project such as masks, distress inks, dies, fragments, stamps, grungeboard, sepia accents, glossy accents, rock candy, memo pins, brad, ticket etc.  Obviously my addiction to all things Tim Holtz was well established by this point!!  I also used a Stampin'Up stamp for the sentiment in the middle of the tattered floral and ribbon to go round the lid plus a few clear accent beads and glimmer some mist.  Once completed I was so pleased with it that I went on to do the same for the second box so that I could keep one myself.  The photo's below are of the box that I kept and it still sits proudly on the dresser in my living room.

Needless to say I was immediately hooked on altered art and nowadays I spend most of my time wondering and dreaming what the next project is...I just need the time to bring my ideas to to life but work tends to get in the way most of the time.

Thanks for looking!
Tracey x