A Vintage Journey - January Challenge - Inside or Outside the Box

Today the January challenge is up over at A Vintage Journey and I am one of the Creative Guides participating this month.  Deb is our inspiring hostess and her challenge is:  Think Inside or Outside of the Box!!

Here is Deb's Description of her challenge:  For our first challenge of 2018 we'd like you to create with a box. Any box of any size will do. It can be one you made yourself or one that you are recycling or even one that you have drawn. We'd like you to make your project either inside the box itself or do something imaginative on the outside or both if that's where your muse takes you. As always we like to see your projects in our preferred styles: vintage, shabby; mixed media; art journaling; industrial, timeworn or steampunk. So put on your thinking caps and re-imagine those boxes both inside and out!

Here is my project but there's a twist about the box.......

  I started out to make a box using Eileen Hull's Trinket Box and Frame die and I wanted to use the wings from Eileen's Bird Die.  So I cut them all out of mat board.

Then my thoughts shifted and I wanted to create a little scene on a slice of birch tree (I've been making several holiday projects on these slices that dear husband cut for me from a fallen branch)  I embossed the tree slice with Ranger Snowflake Tinsel embossing powder (super glittery!)

So I'm imagining just how I can work this into the box theme.   I have this idea of the front of the box with a window in it and wings on the sides. I emboss the frame with Shabby White Frantage Embossing Powder and the wings in Shabby Blue Frantage Embossing Powder.  More wonderful glittery shine!

I pull out a couple of small white bottle brush trees and add Blueberry Ice Stickles (I  have tons of Stickles and haven't used them in ages! never throw out!) to keep them neutral and perhaps look like bits of snow on the trees.

My vision sees winter trees - so I cut some out of Brushed Silver cardstock using Tim's Treeline Thinlit die.

I choose one of Alison's sentiments from her PaperArtsy Set EAB03 - perfect for how I'm feeling about my little boxed scene.  I stamp it on a piece of mat board

I layer some trees across the top of the box frame and adhere the sentiment in front of the trees.

I complete my little forest scene on the slice of birch and attach the box frame on the front.

But I have left the sides and back open on my box. 

I've also attached a button battery light on the top inside of the box front. I got these from Papertrey Ink - but they don't seem to be carrying them anymore.

The trees around the back of the wood slice give an illusion of the back of the box when you look through from the front. 

My Inside or Outside of the box vision is:

Are we looking into a box where we see the lovely deer in his beautiful and serene forest world?   Or is the deer looking into a box where there is a noisy, concrete, sometimes dangerous world? 

Here's a photo of how it looks with the lights out and just the button battery light lit. (hard to get a good photo of it but it is just beautiful!)  I think I want to jump into his side of the box!

So please, check out all of the inspiring Inside or Outside the Box creations over at A Vintage Journey by the other Creative Guides!   We can't wait to see how you interpret this fun challenge! 

Our wonderful sponsor this month is  Funkie Junkie Boutique and the prize is a  $25 shopping coupon!

I also invite you to check out Eileen Hull's blog this month - where the Inspiration Team is posting all kinds of projects using her new Book Club dies!

Stamps:  Alison Bomber EAB03 Eclecctica3 set - PaperArtsy
Ink:  Archival Jet Black, Versamark
Paper:  Cream Matboard - Sizzix, Brushed Silver - Stampin Up
Accessories:  slice of birch tree, Blueberry Ice Stickles,  Bottle brushes - Idea-ology, Thinlits Tree Line Die - Tim Holtz/Alterations, Books and Pages Trinket Box and Frame Die - Eileen Hull/Sizzix, wooden deer - Hobby Lobby, Shabby white and Shabby Blue Frantage Embossing Powder - Stampendous,Quick Dry Tacky Glue - Aleenes, black half pearl, St. Tropex Crystals - Priima, battery button light - PTI