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Friday 23 September 2016

Decorated Ceramic Tile Boxes Make Stunning Gifts!

Plain, undecorated wooden boxes (box blanks) can be transformed using a variety of traditional decorative techniques into functional and artistic gifts. The visual effects these decorative techniques can provide are limited only by your own imagination.

Traditional methods of decorating wooden boxes include painting, with acrylic craft paints, emulsion, oil based paints and wood stains, with natural wood and / or colour stains.

Polmac (UK) Ltd Decorated Ceramic Tile Boxes

You can use small pieces of coloured tissue paper to decoupage your wood boxes, if you prefer a more random, vibrant finish.

The sea glass you've collected from a recent visit to the beach can be glued to your wooden boxes, to create stunning mosaics.

You can also create more complex or basic designs using pyrography (wood burning) and traditional wood carving techniques.

However, one of the most unusual and interesting methods of embellishing wooden boxes is to use decorative ceramic tiles, glued onto the surface.

You can create your own ceramic tile designs, if you have access to a kiln, by hand decorating, or using decorative transfers. If not, you can use decorated tiles from your local tile shop.

When fixing ceramic tiles onto your wood boxes, bear in mind that wood 'moves' due to moisture content, whereas ceramic tiles and glass are static. This means the glue needs to provide separation as well as adhesion.

So, a good choice would be silicone, as it's relatively inexpensive and easy to use.

However, if you're using plywood, you'll need to seal it first, then use a flexible, cement based adhesive, rather than a pre-mixed tub adhesive.

These two gluing methods assume the substrate, whether it's wood, mdf, or plywood, is reasonably rigid and doesn't flex or bow with variations in temperature.

Wood boxes decorated with ceramic tiles and mosaic, are perfect for displaying your tile and mosaic artwork.

They offer unusual design opportunities that can wow and impress your friends and / or clients.

These decorated, ceramic tile boxes make stunning gifts to store treasured mementos and photos in, or to use as elegant gift packages!


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1 comment:

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