A Bird Box decorated with Handmade Paper

This bird box is decorated with acrylic paint and then decoupaged with handmade paper. It has been sanded with sandpaper to achieve a rustic look.

1. Paint the bird box with white acrylic paint.

2. Paint all four sides and the base using turquoise or lime according to your preference.

3. Use the front of the bird box as a template and place it onto the back of a piece of handmade paper. Draw the shape of the front onto the handmade paper, cut it out and attach it onto the bird box using decoupage lacquer.

4. When the paint is dry, sand the bird box with coarse sand paper – eg. 80 grade. This adds a rustic look to the bird box as the white primer can be seen. Sand all sides of the bird box, but gently on the decoupaged sides.

5. Apply a coat of decoupage lacquer onto the finished decorated bird box.

6. Paint the candle sticks with acrylic paint and very diluted water. When the paint is dry, you may varnish the candle sticks with decoupage lacquer. This provides a more resistant surface.

A Papier-Mâché Egg decorated with Quilling

Use a guillotine trimmer for cutting canson card into strips. Then roll the strips into coils using the quilling pen and place them in the chosen mould in the quilling board. Then glue all the coils onto the papier-mâché egg which is painted with acrylic paint.

1. Paint the  papier-mâché egg with white acrylic paint.

2. Cut the canson card into 5mm wide strips using the guillotine trimmer from Fiskars. Begin by trimming the piece of card so that the guillotine trimmer's printed measuring tool is visible and can be used on the left-hand side. The procedure of cutting strips is to constantly move the piece of card 5mm to the right.

3. Place each strip (one at the time) in the slot at the tip of the quilling pen and roll tight to make a coil. Place the coil in the desired mould in the quilling board to keep its shape.

4. Remove the quilled paper strip from the quilling board mould if this tool has been used. Carefully unroll it between two fingers. Secure the coil with a blob of glue and place the coil in the quilling board until the glue is dry. Use the quilling board's different sized moulds to achieve a variety of different sizes of coils. NB! You may choose to make the coils by using your fingers.

5. Glue the hardened coils onto the egg, so the final result appears with a pattern. You may choose to cover the egg entirely or partly with coils.

6. TIP! You may choose to squeeze half-sized strips into a slightly larger heart-shaped mould on the quilling board – several at the same time and glue them together with a bit of glue.

Bracelets and chains with wire beads

The beautiful glass beads provide a wealth of possibilities. Here are matching wire beads made from soft jewellery wire twisted into beads around a mandrel. Glass and wire beads are strung onto elastic beading cord, which makes the work easy and manageable.