Valentine Memory Box---"Smitten"

It's Paulette, eP's guest design team member for February, back with another project.  This week I chose to embellish a memory box.  I am a Valentine fanatic and decided to decorate a box to store all my treasured Valentines.

I found this box on sale at  a local craft store for $1.66.  The box has a white cover and is printed with pink doilies and the hanging red foil hearts motif.  The sides are covered in a red paper and continue the hanging hearts motif.  To complement this pre-printed design I chose a 6x6" paper pad by Authentique called "Smitten."  I used this pad for the doll's dress, the Valentine themed playing cards and the pink rose sticker.

I chose a red lace trim and white ribbon with red hearts as a strip across the bottom to anchor my design. I used one of Julie Nutting's doll stamps by Prima.  Some of the dolls have girl's names, this one is just called the Peasant Doll.  Since she's my Valentine doll, I'm going to name her Philomena---meaning "powerful love." Her dress and headband were paper-pieced with a paper from the "Smitten" paper pack.  I used some narrow Scor-Tape to add some lace trim to the neckline, sleeves and hem of the dress.  The double-stick tape makes gathering the lace and attaching it to the paper dress a cinch.  In her video Julie suggests always distressing the edges of the doll with ink.  I used an Inkssentials Foam Replacement pad and Old Paper TH Distress Ink on the edges.  I also used a black Pitt pen to outline the cut edges of the doll and dress.  I cut some tiny white silk flowers off the edges of some ribbon to adorn Philomena's hair and dress.  A red metallic gel pen was used to color the tiny flower centers.

Two metallic paper doilies---one red, one silver---form the base of the collage on the right side of the box cover. I cut five tiny Valentine themed playing cards cut from the "Smitten" paper and arranged them on top of the doilies.  Paper flowers with pearl or red rhinestone centers were used in the collage.  The "Smitten" pack also contains an assortment of stickers.  I used the pink rose scalloped sticker after first distressing the edges with TH Barn Door Red Distress Ink.

Here's a side view of my memory box:

Thanks for checking out my blog post.  Hope your mailbox will be filled with some lovely cards on Valentine's Day.................................................Paulette

Here are the links to the eP store for some of the products used above:

Zip Dry	Prima - Peasant Doll Mixed Media Stamp	Authentique - Smitten 6x6" Paper Pad	Distress Ink Pad - Barn Door
Distress Ink Pad - Old Paper	Inkssentials - Blending Foam Replacement Pads	Cutter Bee Scissors	Scor Tape -1/8"wide x 27 yds long (double sided)
Sakura Quickie Glue