Who Are You Calling Crafty?

I made the coasters for gifts for several people and decided they all needed boxes.  One of the things I hate to do is make boxes but I refuse to go to the store on a cold, wet day looking for a box, so I turned to Google.  I had an idea what I wanted and what I wanted to make them out of (cereal boxes).  I found this awesome site called Homemade Gifts Made Easy they had a template for a Gable Gift Bag.  I printed the template and transferred it to a cereal box.  I followed the directions and put it together – great LITTLE box.  I was expecting it to be bigger (much bigger) so I made my own template and increased the size so I could use it for the coasters.  The template was okay – I forgot to add the closure tabs and forgot to crease the top so it would fold.  I also realized that hot glue is not ideal for a template that you need to take apart.  Yes this is a real play by play as you can see from the picture I am typing in Windows Live Writer while working on this project.

You would think the second time it would go better but it did not   I made the little one and it worked perfectly one would think enlarging it a teeny tiny bit would not make that much of a difference.  As you can see by the photo it has been a FAIL!  The bottom of the box was great and fit the coasters perfectly so I decided to cut the top off and make a bag.  It was the equivalent of  when life gives you lemons make lemonade.

I did not take any pictures (the first time – I redid the project to take pictures) primarily because I was working and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the box.  I really wanted a “watercolor effect” paper but I didn’t want to use my good watercolor paper and take the time to do it.  Remember I have two small children and one of them is extremely demanding.  So during nap time my amazing husband took my daughter to the store and I got to work. 

I pulled out my India Ink, water, eye dropper, grabbed some paper towels and freezer paper and got to work.  I laid the freezer paper shiny side down and laid a piece of paper towel over the freezer paper and dripped ink over all over the place. 

I took the eye dropper and added some water to make the ink bleed.  Once everything dried I glued the paper towel with Elmer’s Glue. 

Be aware if you use this type of glue get creative with the design because the card board will show through. 

Once everything dried I created a paper towel rose applied it with glue and then embellished the box with Puffy Paint.  After the Puffy Paint dried I took out my blue dye ink pad and brushed the edges.  Once it was finished I added ribbon handles.

As you can see not everything turns out as planned but sometimes you need to go with the flow

Note:  I created this box (blog post) on Sunday and have since made two more boxes but they are not finished yet.  I am running out of time but I am having fun creating all these projects