Upcycled card boxes

Some boxes are just too nice to toss onto the recycle bin once you’ve emptied them.

Like these boxes that contained blank notecards.  Oftentimes I even frame the pretty cards; but this post is about the empty boxes.

They both have ‘hidden magnetic clasps’, so they open and re-close very easily.

On this one I’ll need to cover the inside of the lid also, but the other one is ‘neutral enough’ that I could leave it ‘as is’ if I wanted to.

Here is how I cut one 12″ x 12″ sheet of scrapbook paper to cover the floral box.

First I glued the strips on the sides.  (used tacky glue)

Overlapping a bit on the front and back.

Then the big piece of paper I glued, starting at the front flap, covering the lid, the back spine and as far onto the bottom of the box and back up the lower front of the box.

I opted to leave the inside of this one ‘as is’ since it was so neutral.

A couple of little embellishments to the lid and it’s done.

On the shell box I used left over bits and pieces of scrap paper.  Old dictionary page on the bottom.

A combination of papers and a picture on the lid.  (I left the sides ‘as is’ on this box; since they were neutral)

Some sheet music paper inside the lid, and more dictionary page on the bottom.

And I ALWAYS add a little bit of paper shred inside my boxes.  For these I used some hand folded and hand cut vintage sheet music.  It’s just a little ‘extra touch’ that I like to do.

Found a little ‘love’ sticker in my stash that suited this box.

Done!  The smaller one in the center came from Dollar Tree, and I embellished it similarly to how I did the two card boxes.   It was all green except for the top, which had some kind of design on it that I can’t even recall right now!  I just covered the top and bottom of it, and added the embellishments.

Next time you get ready to toss an empty box into the recycle bin; pause for a moment to consider if it might be prettied up and re-used first.

Sweet little spring boxes

VERY simple project!  I just picked out some pretty spring colored scrapbook embellishments and put one or two of them on the top of each of these little mullberry paper covered boxes with sheer ribbon handles.  (the boxes came with the paper covering and ribbon handle)

These embellishments are from “K & Co.”.  I sooooooooooooooooo wish I could stock their stuff in the store!  Just don’t have the room for the minimum order quantities some of these bigger suppliers require.  I just buy the ones I use at the craft store.  Michael’s stores usually has this brand.  And sometimes I see them at Target.

I only put one simple decoration on the lid of the box, (since I was doing so many of them to sell in the store, and wanted to keep the price down) but these would be cute to add ric rac or beaded trim to, to dress them up more.  And the lids could be made into a more elaborate altered art collage.

OUR WEBSITE:  www.cscrafts.com/aj.html