The World in a Matchbox - by Kim

Ever thought it would be nice to carry your whole world in a matchbox? Well, I’ve sort of done it by putting all the Oriental astrological elements in one box; fire, earth, metal, water, wood.

I’ve used, from Tando Creative, their Matchbox, Medium with inserts. It arrives flat packed but assembly is easy and straightforward. I used ordinary PVA to stick it together.

I decided that I would use four inserts and the cover would be the fifth element, and that would be a dramatic ‘metal’ finish. 

For the individual 'metal' plates I used pieces from Tando Offcuts. I chopped the edges randomly to to make them less than perfect, and more interesting, then glued them to the surface of the cover. (Be careful when using sharp blades!)

Base coat the entire cover - except the plates - with Lamp Black, including going inside by a brush width incase it is visible on the finished piece.

I painted two coats of DecoArt Venetian Gold on the plates so that it was well covered. Next I aged the edges by blending Quinacridone Gold Media Fluid Acrylic. Finally, I blended Paynes Grey Media Fluid Acrylic around the outside, to give more depth to the ageing.

Now to the inserts. I printed four pictures*, one for each of the remaining elements, and glued them on. I cut them slightly larger than the insert so that I could use coarse sandpaper to ‘blend’ the edges to fit.

To embellish the pictures I printed the Chinese characters and words. For the back of each card I used the element’s associated colour; earth - yellow, wood - green, fire - red, water - black,(metal is white) and a slip-slap graduated blend of DecoArt colours. A little gold wax rub-on round the edges finished it off.

Back to the cover. I added characters, words. and title to the outer. The inner tray was painted black outside and white inside. I stamped ‘I paint what I like’, added characters, and finished with ‘long life’.

(*Make sure you have permission to use the pictures)

Products used:

Tando Creative : Matchbox Medium with inserts

Tando Creative : Off cuts 50g

DecoArt Colours:

Venetian Gold Metalic acrylic paint

Lamp Black

Titanium White 

Media Acrylics:

Quinacridone Gold and Paynes Grey

Various colours of your choice for the backs

Also:

Gold rub-on wax

Pictures as appropriate 

Rubber stamps with Chinese characters