KaiserCraft Drawers Finished

I decided before decorating these drawers, that they would be for my youngest daughter Beth - a little gift because she's worked so hard at college. The trouble is that her tastes are somewhat eclectic... she's into naval/sea themes, shabby-chic, vintage, old maps, steam punk, market, british, quirky and grunge... sometimes all at once at sometimes not at the same time!

So... how do I make and decorate a little set of drawers for a young lady with a huge range of tastes? I started with her favourite (sometimes) colours of blue and green... and kind of made it up as I went from there.

I had in my head some sort of idea where the drawer set would look like it had been found under the sea - like treasure. For this I needed the finished product to have some sort of patina or rusty effect.

I started by painting the chipboard shelves (glued together with aliphatic resin) with a mixture of: gesso, poster paint, white glue and dye. This dries really quickly, and after an hour, I rubbed back some of the 'paint' to reveal the chipboard base. Next I rubbed 'weathered wood' distress ink onto the exposed edges. I knew that I would use silver alcohol ink for the top layer... so I needed something under that to look rusty and worn. I just sprayed the shelves lightly with cosmic shimmers - a brown and a navy. then it was a simple matter of choosing papers for the sides and the back. I sealed everything with a modpodge mixture (gloss and matt - it's all leftovers!) and whilst that was drying I made up the  three drawers. I wrapped them in plain white copy paper, and then wrapped the front and sides with paper to match to shelves. I inked the edges with the same distress ink as used before. Mod podge out again... and I had to wait until this evening to finish off, as I caught a tummy-bug!

Here's the drawers waiting for the finishing touches:

Beth loved them as they were - but I wanted something a bit more 'finished'.

I used matching brads to decorate the front of the drawers, and then went slap-happy (or is that 'smudge-happy'?) with the alcohol ink in silver. A little chipboard piece (edged in silver alcohol ink too), and some baby blue liquid pearls, and Beth's little set of drawers is all finished. She's chuffed to bits with them :) She's just lucky that there isn't a room in the house that matches the blue and silver theme except for her room... because I quite like them too :) My favourite bit is the way the ship on the side actually starts at the front on the drawer, though I am quite pleased with how the patina effect turned out - not bad for making something up as I went along *lol*