Hunkdory Review – The Little Book Of Wonderful Wintertime - A Christmas Shadow Box

The exciting parcel of lovely bits and pieces from Hunkydory for me to review has finally arrived and rather than doing just one long post I thought I would much rather put together a series of posts over the next coming little while featuring the products as and when inspiration takes me.  If you’re anything like me when you’re working with something new one idea quickly gets hijacked by another and I really want to give what I have been sent my best shot, especially as, although I am familiar with the company I have never actually used any of their products.

So, my first project is this  Christmas shadow box was made using a Poundland, glass fronted  bathroom frame which has a little depth to it, when I saw it I was pretty sure, if done carefully, I could get the back off and then use it for a all manner of 3D festive type projects…..

….. especially when teamed up with pages from the Hunkydory Little Book Of Wonderful Wintertime. https://www.hunkydorycrafts.co.uk/the-little-book-of-a-wonderful-wintertime-lbk216.html  £9.99 (or buy 3 for 2)

This A6 book of 150gsm papers contains 144 pages featuring 24 designs – 6 of each and with nothing else done to them, they would make a perfect card topper, but that’s not really my style, they demand to be embellished, but that’s another post or two.  I am a bit fussy about Christmas designs, especially snowmen and Santa’s, but given one or two of the Santa’s, I would be happy to use almost all the designs in one guise or another. The paper is glossy which takes me a little out of my comfort zone as I am very much a matt girl, but with this particular pad, because of the designs, I am happy for once to overlook the gloss.

The plastic Poundland frame measures approx.  7 3/4 ins x 5.3/4 ins with a working depth of approx. 1/4 in.

After carefully removing the hardboard backing I set about covering it completely with a light wood affect paper (from an assorted box of A4  papers, given as a free gift from the Create and Craft show Marc and I went to last year) to create a border that went with the rusticy/country feel of the designs

I then mat and layered my chosen design on matt red and then silver mirror card and placed it in the middle of the wooden effect paper.

I added three small plastic snowflakes (from The Works last Christmas) over the larger printed ones   …….

…… put three red flat back pearls over the holly berries on his hat, tiny black dome stickers over his eyes and applied Ranger Glossy Accents on his scarf and nose ……

….. plus a tiny blue button, just for the devil in the detail.

The final touches were added using a very sparkly, white, iridescent micro glitter on his hat, trees and on top of the wording.

I was so chuffed with how it looked, but the proof of the pudding was putting it back in the frame.  If I may say so myself, perfect!

Once in the frame I faux stitched round the outer and inner edges with a permanent, black fine liner pen and clusters of dots using a white Posca pen.  Adding two large wooden snowflake in the adjacent corners with one of the plastic snowflakes in the middle and another by the side with more dots.  The frame stands up on it’s own (I removed the ribbon hanger) so would be fine to display on festive shelves etc. Voila!

I am so pleased with how this idea has turned out  that I have decided that this will be my Christmas Card  of 2019, as you know I always give family and close friends something that they can keep/use from one Christmas to another rather than a card that is more often as not thrown away after the event.

I am hoping/praying that I can find some more frames (if you find any I would happily pay for them plus P & P), but if not I do have an alternate frame I could possibly use but without the depth but with which I would probably remove the glass altogether.  I will have a play and hopefully post what I come up with using this frame and another design from the book.

https://www.hunkydorycrafts.co.uk/the-little-book-of-a-wonderful-wintertime-lbk216.html  £9.99 (or buy 3 for 2)

I have been sent a selection of free products to review by Hunkydory and have not received any additional financial payment for writing said review.  The opinions I have given are my own honest findings and are not in anyway influenced by the company involved.  I do not receive any commission for any products that might be purchased as a result of this review.