I also really enjoy reusing items and making something that is functional as well as being pretty. The aluminum box was already lined with a burgundy liner and has two circular parts that I'm going to use to hold my bracelets.
So what I started out with was an aluminum box that had contained perfume gift set (a friend of mine was going to just throw this little gem away in the trash :-o but thankfully I rescued it) and I had about 4 packs of temporary tattoos (found 4 of them on clearance aisle for 50 cents for each pack) each pack of tattoos had 4 sheets of temporary tattoos.
Okay so here is the materials that you'll need:
A metal box
Coarse sandpaper made for use on metal (optional)
Sheets of cute temporary tattoos
Clear sealer
Scissors
Peanut butter
Dawn dish detergent
An old credit card(optional tool)
Small cup of water to apply the temporary tattoos to the box
Rubbing Alcohol (if you make a mistake or the temporary tattoo tears while you are applying it)
Okay I know you are looking at the list and saying what the hell? Why do I need peanut butter right? Peanut butter and Dawn dish detergent are my secret weapons to get rid of leftover sticker stickiness off of the aluminum box. :-)
So what I did first was to use my fingernails to scrape off most of the old stickers on my aluminum box. Than I slathered a pretty thin coat of peanut butter onto the top of the box and anywhere else that there used to be stickers. I allowed the peanut butter to stay on the box for around at least half an hour to an hour.
Basically just test to see if the sticker residue comes, you can use an old credit card to see if the sticker residue is loose enough to be cleaned off completely at the half hour mark. If it doesn't come off easily, you just wait another half an hour. To completely clean off the loosened up sticker residue, you'll cover the peanut butter on the aluminum box with Dawn dish detergent and scrub with a dishcloth.
Once you've thoroughly cleaned up the aluminum box and dried it, you'll want to look at the temporary tattoos to figure out which ones you'd like to use and where you want to place them on your box.
Use scissors to cut the temporary tattoo out as close to the tattoo as possible.
~IMPORTANT REMINDER~ Remember that your temporary tattoo will be flipped around when you are ready to apply it to your box. Another tip is that if you don't like the way a particular temporary tattoo looks (maybe you don't like that it has additional swirly parts around the tattoo) you can always just cut that part off or reuse it in a different way..
For example look above at the the heart temporary tattoo with the thorny vines underneath it. What I did was to cut off the thorny vines and put the heart on the side of the box with the thorny vines on each side after I cut it down the middle and separated the vines. Laughs ignore the mess on my bed.
Yes I misplaced the one side of the thorny vines a little bit but you could always use a permanent magic marker to fill in that tiny bit of missing temporary tattoo or just leave it as is cuz sometimes its little imperfections that make it fun and unique. At least that's how I feel about tiny things like that :-)
Before you apply the temporary tattoos to the box, you have to make up your mind if you want to rough up the metal surface with coarse sandpaper made for metal objects. Here is a picture of what my box looked like before and after I used metal sandpaper on it. Lol I actually asked my friends on Facebook to vote for which way did they thought looked better. Actually I had already stuffed the ballot box with votes for doing it by scuffing up the aluminum box with the metal sandpaper.
The easiest way to apply the temporary tattoos is to put all of the tattoos onto your box and figure out where exactly that you want to place them. It will take awhile to know what looks good to you placement wise for the tattoos. I started with the sides and sort of grouped the tattoos together in different themes. One side I put flowers, the other side I put hearts and love tattoos, and the other side I put butterflies.
Flower Side
Hearts and Love Side
Butterfly Side
Latch section of the box
I only put 2 tattoos on this section since I would be putting a lock on this box.
I didn't want to over decorate a section where the lock would just rub the tattoo
off of the box. I couldn't leave any section of the box undecorated except the bottom.
The secret to applying the temporary tattoos is to turn the tattoo over onto the box (just like you would if you were applying it to your skin). Gently rub the tattoo with your DRY fingertip for about 15 seconds before you use a fingertip that you have dipped into your water cup.
**CAUTION** Don't drown your tattoo with water!! You just want to wet the paper on the back of the tattoo just enough so that the tattoo slips free of the paper. As soon as the tattoo is off of the paper, gently tap the box or blow the excess water AWAY from the tattoo.
I suggest doing your box in sections. I did each side and sealed it with the clear sealer and let the sealer dry before moving onto the next side or section. This way the tattoos weren't rubbed off or damaged while I was working on another section. :-)
Use rubbing alcohol and your fingernail to remove any damaged temporary tattoos. The good thing about temporary tattoos is that most of the packages of tattoos that I bought had duplicates of the same tattoo. So if you messed up on a tattoo that you really wanted to add to your box, you have another to use as a replacement.
Once you have your larger tattoos in place, you can go back and fill in any bare spots with tiny tattoos like little stars or whatever you want to fill that space with. Don't be afraid to overlap the tattoos. For example, if you have a rose tattoo and a butterfly tattoo, hell put down the rose tattoo and than put the butterfly right on top once you have blown the extra water away from the rose. As long as the first tattoo is dry before you add the secondary tattoo, you should have no problem overlapping tattoos on the box.
Here is the final pictures of my aluminum tattoed jewelry box =^,^=
Look above to see the sides and latch parts.
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| This is the top of my aluminum tattoo box after I finished putting all the final touches on it. |
Some of my favorite tattoos on my aluminum box are:
~1~ Phoenix or FireBird (I love the symbolism where it is rising from the flames or ashes. I feel that way about how I am rising from the ashes of some past relationships now as a stronger, wiser person)
~2~ The heart made out of the 2 musical notes. Music has become a very good outlet for me lately from just listening to music to enjoying myself singing out loud or singing while I'm cleaning. Music makes the time go by quicker while I'm cleaning or walking.
~3~ The wide eyed yellow owl. Giggles it just makes me laugh because I added what I thought was a Cutie tattoo over top of it but it says Cute instead. Either way it still makes me giggle =^,^=
~4~ The red lips are another of my favorites. I plan on getting a pair of lips actually tattooed on my bum. I figure if people don't like the way that I am that they can honestly kiss my A_ _. I'm sure I don't need to spell it out ;-)
~5~ The guitar with the wings and the musical notes on each side is definitely a favorite because I feel that music can transport you to a temporary place of peace sometimes in stressful situations. Or a song can trigger memories also. :-)
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Thanks from FreeSpiritJamie :-)
