Desk Tidy - Milk Cartons!

Papertake Weekly have a super colour combo theme this week which influenced how I finished off my desk tidy! You’re to use any shades of green and purple in your artwork and here’s my finshed desk tidy, made from recycled milk cartons - I originally saw this on the Arte y Pico site, just the bare bones diagrams. I couldn’t read the instructions as they’re in Japanese!!

And here’s a close-up…

It started as 4 milk cartons, washed out and cut down roughly to the size I wanted. I sat and covered them with torn scraps of paper from books and stash, stuck on and coated with PVA + water. I left them to dry in my craft room and then gave them a thin coat of gesso. Yesterday, I used a combination of red+blue water colors and purple acrylic paint to cover the outsides - so I ended up with two coordinating shades of purple. From there I used black acrylic paint and foam stamps for the images and the edging, which I really like! I ran the lime green ribbon through the Xyron and stuck it on. The last touch was a purple paper and wire rose to the carton on the left and some gold punched out leaves I brought home from work yesterday! I used 3D foam tape to stick the cartons together - it gives them a bit of space as they aren’t perfectly straight or rigid. I also didn’t over-embellish the backs of the cartons so that I can add more to this desk tidy as and when I want to!

As we’re ‘altering’ something this month on Aunty’s Design Team, I’m ahead of myself for once!! Here are the rest of the pics I took whilst making this project… not very complex, work in stages and make something useful and gorgeous for yourself!!