Tando Christmas Scene Box step-by-step

Hello and welcome to a special blog post for Tando Creative. This post is a step-by-step to how I created the Tando Creative Christmas Scene Box kit.

Here is my final creation...

Step-by-step...

Firstly, I got all the pieces of the kit out of the packaging and laid everything out on the table. (Tando kits are usually pretty straight forward to put together but I always do a dry run first before I start adding decoration just to make sure I am decorating the right side and I know where to add glue etc..)

I then painted all the pieces of the kit with DecoArt white Gesso on both sides and left to dry.

On the back part of the box, which would be on the inside of the box, I used DecoArt white modelling paste through the Tando Creative 6 x 6 snowflake mask.

Next, I built all the flat house pieces in to 3D houses, gluing the flaps down and adding the roof to each house. 

I put PVA glue in a container and added a few drops of water to make it more runny. I spread the runny glue on to the bottom piece of the box, which would be on the inside of the finished box, and added tissue paper. I did this over and over to build up lots of layers to create a paper mache hill. I wanted the hill to have lots of texture with added lumps and bumps to eventually look like a snowy mound. 

Next, I made a batch of extra thick home-made texture paste. This is a mixture of PVA glue and baby powder. I start by putting the same quantities of each ingredient in a large container and mixing together. Then depending on how thick I want the paste I add more PVA/powder to the mixture until I am happy.

Sometimes, I add other ingredients like beads, sequins, paint... or in this case building sand. The sand makes the paste more gritty which adds extra texture.

When all the ingredients are mixed well together, I used a spatula to spread the paste on to the houses, the tree and the paper mache hill.

I mixed DecoArt Media Metallic Gold Fluid Acrylic paint with DecoArt white Gesso and painted the houses. 

I painted the box sides, top and bottom, front and back with DecoArt Media Fluid Acrylic Cobalt Turquoise paint then added DecoArt Orange Flicker Metallic Lustre using my finger to just softly touch the embossed areas. 

I painted the tree with DecoArt Media Phthalo Green-Yellow Fluid Acrylic paint and dabs of white gesso and added the Orange Flicker Metallic Lustre.

I used the Metallic Lustre on the houses.

And to the snowy hill.

I adhered the tree to the inside back of the scene box.

I then adhered the finished houses inside the box scene.

To finish, I attached the top piece to the rest of the box.

And, here is my finished creation.

Some close-ups....

Everything I used is at the bottom of the blog post and is available from the Tando website.

Thank you so much for popping by, leave a comment if you wish as I love to read your thoughts.

Toodles for now,

Lisa x