Gothic Book Box and Book

This project began as a plain paper mache book box.  The theme for the Imagine If stand at SENZ this year was books.  Jo sent out a box and we agreed that my theme would be "Gothic".  This project had me stupmped for quite a while but in the end I came up with a concept and ran with it. Here is the front of the completed project.  

To begin with I painted the whole box with black gesso and then I covered the front of the box with white crackle paste.    I then played with green and blue paint and DecoArt Quinacridone Gold over the whole box. I used black embossing paste on the front cover and once that was dry I added various paper clay pieces made using the IO moulds. The skull is a plastic one that I picked up from Spotlight and I used Powertex and a croicheted doily to put around the skull.  I also used the large and small balls from Powertex to add texture to the doily and around the paperlcay pieces.  I painted the paperclay with black gesso then I used Viva Gold and DecoARt pastes to give them an tarnished tinge.  I also used DecoArt Quinacridone gold around the paperclay pieces to tie them into the rest of the cover.

For the back and the spine I used silicone lace made using a lace mould and added more paperclay pieces painting them using the same paints I used for the front.

On the side of the book I used white modelling paste and dragged a fork through it to stimulate pages.  I used vintage paper distress stain to give it an aged appearance.

On the inside of the box I used some beautiful papers that I downloaded from OriginsDigitalCurio at Etsy. I also used an image from a calender by Victoria Frances. Over the image I painted crackle glaze and then I stencilled some black embossing paste to match the cover and used the same paints that I used on the book box to tie it all together.  I also added some silicone feathers.

Once the box was completed I then made a book to go inside the box,  Again I used an image from the calendar by victoria Frances and distressed it and added paperclay elements.  I hand dyed the paper inside and ripped the paper to give it an old worlde look. For the spine I again used paperclay pieces from the IO moulds and then I added a cabachon and some beads to hang from the top of the spine.  I used a hidden binding to sew the signatures into the book.