Cigar Box Project with Poppy Stamp by 100 Proof Press

I love a good challenge and could not resist the opportunity to take part in the recent design contest put forward by 100 Proof Press stamps on The Handmade Gift Guide.com website.  The challenge was for 10 selected participants to use a specific "Poppy" stamp by 100 Proof Press to create an original entry.

I received my rubber stamp earlier this week and have finally put my project together.

I choose to create a decorated cigar box using portions 

of the 100 Proof Press "Poppy" stamp.

This is a side view of my finished cigar box project.

 Top View of the finished "Poppy" box.

View of the box with the lid open.

 I wanted the cigar box to remain a recognizable cigar box so I 

left the interior undecorated, just for the grins and giggles of it.

 I had a lot of fun creating this project and love creative process of thinking outside of the box on challenges like this stamp contest.  There is just something so fun about being given one image and having to push your boundaries to come up with something unique.   I love the way this project came out and look forward to using this storage box as a trinket chest.

So for those of you who like to know how I did it...

I thought this little square cigar box would make a great base to showcase the 

100 Proof Press "Poppy" Stamp.  I liked yellow background, the gold edging and thought the flowers would be the perfect decoration without totally obscuring the basic appearance of the box.

It took a bit of time to carefully remove the extra labels off the box but it cleaned up nicely.

Once I knew I wanted to decorate a cigar box a la decoupage style , it was a question of how to execute it properly.  Decoupage requires thin paper that will be able to withstand a wet glue like medium to apply the images as well as to brush on several layers of the stuff to seal it all on an allow the box to be fairly durable to handling down the line. 

I wanted a watercolor effect but knew that if I used watercolors or pastels I would have a huge problem with my colors running when I went to apply the wet medium over the finished project so...
I chose my laser printer as the best way to color the paper and then I stamped the image on that.
(Laser printers use a heat bonding process to get the ink to stay on the paper and I knew this would be able to take on the layers of glue necessary without causing my coloring agent to bleed all over the place.)

 I scanned the image into my computer just so I could make sure I printed 

shaded color into the areas I would then be stamping over.

(Please note - I did not digitally color and print the image.  I only produced a 

shaded colored paper that I then physically stamped the image onto.)

 This is what my color shading looked like when it was ready to print.

 This project was going to require a lot of images so I printed

2 sheets of colorized shading with 9 on each sheet.

 Next I stamped the Poppy image onto a plastic viewer 

using a Stamp-a-ma-jig tool and Staz-On ink.

  

This will allow me to line up where to stamp on the colorized sheets

so my stamped image hits it just right.

 I line up the plastic viewer over the colorized area, put

the Stamp-a-ma-jig in place and then remove the plastic viewer to

stamp my image using Staz-On black ink.

As you can see from this shot I've stamped the bottom 2 rows 

already and the top row just shows the colorizing still waiting

to have the image stamped over it.

 Several hours were spent cutting out all the parts I would be using in my project.   

I started arranging a pattern I liked and then used a brush with 

paper adhesive to put my decorated box together.  

The big trick was to cover up all the wording on the exterior of the box yet still 

keep the background and trim visible.

 Once all the flowers and leaves were glued down I applied several coats of 

Gloss - Lustre Mod Podge over the top and sides of the box.

I then applied these great metal feet from Tim Holt's idea-ology
line to make the perfect trinket box.

 So this is the fun way I chose to portray the "Poppy" stamp for this challenge.

Many thanks to 100 Proof Press for sponsoring the contest and to 

The Handmade Gift Guide for hosting the contest on their site.

Thanks for dropping by
and viewing my latest creative adventure.

Till next time...

 Grins and Giggles,
 Evelyn