Fun Office Accessories (October Afternoon)

Hi Everyone

I am Guest Designing for October Afternoon this month and I will be sharing my creations here over the next few weeks.

I have been having great fun with the 9 to 5 Collection! I worked in a corporate office for many years and I have so say there was more than a touch of the Mad Men about it and I just love the imagery of the vintage office theme. I made these pieces just for me which is a real rarity – read on to see a little more about how I created them.

Craft Tools Box

This box from Kaisercraft comes as a flat packed mdf kit and measures a huge 14.5″ x 6″. I started by covering the edges with the 9 to 5 washi tape which makes for a fast and bright alternative to painting and then I then fully lined and covered the box in patterned papers from the collection. I suggest using a solvent based glue when creating these types of project as it dries quickly, will not warp the paper and it cleans up very easily with an adhesive eraser if it seeps from the edges. After I covered the entire piece in paper I started on the decoration.

The perfectly coordinating collection embellishments make this super easy and I started by decorating the two ends of the box – this way I get to see the pretty side wherever the box is sitting! It’s easy to layer the die cuts and stickers, and to add dimension I used foam dots to mount the various elements.

I created the “pull handle” for the top of the box by making some decorated glass tiles and mounting them onto the small wooden strip that came with the box. You can see a little tutorial showing how I did this below – these make great custom scrapbook and card embellishments

1. Gather up some paper, flat glass beads or tiles, Glossy Accents adhesive and a sharp knife
2. Spread a thin even layer of Glossy Accents onto the back of the tile
3. Press the tile firmly onto the paper, moving it around in small circles to get rid of any air bubbles and to ensure the thinnest layer remains
4. When dry, cut around the tile carefully with a sharp knife
5. Ta-daah! These are super quick to make
6. Make lots – use what you need, glue a magnet on the back of the extras and you have a great new set of fridge magnets!

Memo Pad

This started out as another plain mdf piece, and this time I inked the exposed wooden edges with Distress Ink and then used a stylized woodgrain stamp and some brown ink to create a simple woodgrain pattern.

I covered the exposed sides with paper from the collection, picking out elements I wanted to display such as this sentiment (Picture 1). I often work with my window open to I have made this handy cover to stop the tiny memo pages from blowing away (Picture 2) and this sticker was just too cute not to use on the reverse of the cover (Picture 3)

This mug came ready-made with a template sheet of paper you can use to cut and create your own photo inserts. I really wanted to use this “Shorthand” paper in one of my projects so I cut a strip to size and then added stickers to complete my office set!

Please post a comment with any questions 🙂
Lowri
I am linking up this post to these websites here.