Recycled and Repurposed with Suzi

Good Morning All, I hope you are all enjoying the festive season. One of the things about giving and receiving gifts it all the wonderful packaging they come in.  For my project today I'm altering a Whiskey Bottle Tube that my Dad had received; As he travels a lot he wants to use it to protect his Water Flosser, so he asked me to change it's appearance so it doesn't raise questions from the Customs Staff.

As a starting point I took some old map paper and collaged it onto the tube, followed by a layer of White Gesso;

I then took a stencil and applied clear embossing ink through it and coated with clear embossing powder;

I then heated it with my Heat Gun;

Then it was time to add some colour, I took the tube and put it into an old cardboard box that I use as a spray booth to catch any excess sprays. I add a layer of colour with Turquoise Brusho Acrylic Mist Spray and some water.

I then added a layer of Sea Green Brusho Acrylic Mist Spray and water.

Then I dabbed away some of the colour from the embossed areas before drying the tube with my heat gun. Here's a couple of views of the dry tube;

I wanted to add some stamping to my project, so I decided to stamp some images with permanent ink onto to deli paper; 

I stamped a few sheets of deli paper, so any leftover images can be used on future projects.  The deli paper will become barely visable once applied to the tube.  You could use tissue paper instead.

I then selected some images, and added them around the tube;

Once dry edges of the deli paper where more visible than I wanted, so I added some white gesso through a couple of stencils to blend the edges.  Here's a few views of the finished tube.

To make the tube more practical to use I added a couple of layers of spray varnish.

I'm fairly happy with how the finished tube turned out, in hindsight I would have probably added the stamped images before adding the colour; this may have blended them into the background a bit more. 

I hope you've found my process interesting, and you look at some of that leftover packaging a little differently now.  I pleased to say my Dad loved the finished tube, he's added some padding inside and it fits his Water Flosser perfectly, so will be put to good use on his next trip.

Thanks for visiting with us today, Enjoy the rest of the holidays, 

Happy Crafting

Bye for now

Suzi

xxx