Miniature Wardian Box

Hi all! I hope you're having a great weekend. Mine has been fabulous! I had my group of crafting buddies over on Saturday and we made these adorable Wardian cases. I had never heard of this term until my friend, Cyndi, introduced me to them. She has several in her home and, the last time I was there, I commented that we should make a miniature version out of chipboard. After opening my big mouth, I had to figure out exactly how this would happen. Time for some engineering!

After mulling it over a bit, I hit upon the idea of using Tim Holtz's Arch Movers and Shapers die to cut the openings in the walls, which were cut from medium weight chipboard. The front piece measures 6" x 5" and the sides are 3.5" x 5". The walls are hinged together with strips of cardstock.

I wanted my case to have the look of aged zinc so I gave all the chipboard pieces a coat of charcoal paint, then dry brushed it with white. I used Tim's Picket Fence Distress Spray to add drips of white. The fleur de lis is a Movers and Shapers die from Sizzix.

The case has a chipboard floor that was covered with foam that we painted green and then hot glued moss to cover.

Cyndi (who has more dies than anyone I know!), generously cut us every type of fern you can imagine. We inked them with Distress ink to add more interest and color variation.

All that's left is to glue all of the ferns in place!

I found some really cool acrylic panels on Amazon for the windows - they're so clear it really looks like glass! The adorable little gnome is from the Dollar Tree.

I added a few fussy cut butterflies from Graphic 45's Nature Sketchbook.

The trim was cut with an older die of Tim's called Vintage Lace. I can't find it on the Sizzix site so it must have been discontinued.

I love peeking through the windows at my adorable little gnome! It's just about the sweetest thing ever.

It's been ages since I've 'built' anything 3d and it was really a blast making these with my friends. I apologize for not sharing a better tutorial - it was totally a fly by the seat of my pants kind of thing! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

Sizzix has a big sale going on now and both of the dies I used are included! A word of warning - it looks like they no longer sell the base tray for using Movers and Shapers by themselves. If you don't already have one, there are lots of different tutorials for using them without the tray, though, so you should be able to Google it and find the correct sandwich for your machine.

You can find the supplies I used via the links below!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you all have a fantastic week!