Kaisercraft Off The Page Project 1 - Nine Drawers

I started these drawers just before Christmas and they took a lot longer to put together than I originally anticipated but the process was very relaxing and quite rewarding. The packet comes with the plain wood pieces, and you have to assemble them after they are decorated or you will run across problems.

First, assemble all the pieces lightly together so you can easily take them apart again. Use a pen and mark all the inside areas that you are going to paint with an X, and the parts you are going to paper with a O. I recommend papering all the sections that you will see, on the outside of the drawers and also on the inside bottom shelves (see pic). Paint the rest of the surfaces including along the thin edges of the wooden pieces. Some areas are more difficult to paper than others, and this will also save paper on surfaces that wont be seen.

Note: if you are going to put any borders or such inside the drawer slots then you will need to layer some PVA glue over the top to make the surface smooth, otherwise the drawers will catch as they slide in and out.

When the paint is dry you can start attaching the paper. I chose a ‘memory’ theme for my drawers, and pink and pale green as the main colours. Choosing the papers to use was the most fun part of this project, as I wanted to create an eclectic mix of papers that would complement each other but also look really funky. The most beautiful papers were used on the outside and I used more plain and stripy papers on the inside. I also recommend that you put the outside papers on last (the top and sides) since that way you wont accidentally make a hole in them when you are assembling the pieces.

The edges of my pieces were decorated with a white lacey punch border, and i inked the edges of every single piece so that you cant see the white where the paper was cut. The ink can also cover any spots where the glue has leaked, paper isnt exactly straight, paint may not have been applied 100% evenly etc. I used a gold ink to give the project a more distressed/ vintage type look.

After assembly and gluing down the sides and top, I added my final decorations. These included butterfly cut outs, flowers, velvet ribbon, flourishes and a nice memory quote which I mounted on chipboard and inked the edges. I also mounted the quote on some hessian to give it a bit of pizazz.

For the front of the drawers I used a mix of papers that I really loved. I added some stamped words such as “fun”, mischief” and “carefree” which were mounted on chipboard and inked. I outlined the words in stickles to make them a bit more three dimensional.

The musical notes on one of the drawers were backed by burgundy velvet ribbon, with the bottom of the notes done in liquid pearl (latte colour). Finally, I finished the drawers off with some large pearl brads as handles.

To finish off the piece, I cut out the words “Memory” using chipboard through my cuttlebug, inked the pieces with VersaColour ‘Seafoam’ and then covered the letters in light green glittery embossing powder and set it with my head gun. The words were mounted on the very back edge of the top behind the butterflies and stuck down with PVA glue. You may have to hold each letter in place until it is partially set so that they dont just flop off (learned that the hard way!!).

There, all done! What do you think??