Gift Boxes

I bought lots of plain boxes like the one above here with the intention of doing something lovely with them. Paper collage and distressed colours came to mind. I started working on them with no real end goal in sight, I wasn't sure if I was going to sell them, keep them, or sell them with something else inside. I used my Cuttlebug to cut out the heart and circle shapes from lovely paper that I got in Cork Art Supplies. I firstly painted the boxes using a bright and varied palette of red,pink,blue,yellow, and white, painting all the surfaces different colours.

I then matched up the papers to the lids and boxes, gluing and varnishing as I went. I started looking around for nice papers with little interesting details that I could put on the inside, after all everyone loves to see what's inside a box! The next stage involved a leap of faith; distressing my lovely painted boxes with ink, then followed more varnish. It took me a few hours to figure out what was missing, then it occurred to me that some buttons would tie all the colours together and bring back some brightness after the dark inks.Surprise, surprise, that it was buttons came to the rescue!

Then came the really difficult bit, figuring out what to sell them as??? A friend suggested that they could be proposal boxes, something I had never heard of before. Basically it's a posh little box that an engagement ring is put into. Also they could be party or wedding favours, I know I would be thoroughly impressed if I got one of these at an alternative wedding!(I'd do a discount for orders of 10 boxes or more). In the end I had to make a decision about the price, when I looked at how long they had taken to make I decided to charge €10. Which at first seemed expensive for a small box, but it's not feasible to sell them for less considering the effort. I've made the decision not to sell them at the market as I can see people being shocked (and sometimes rude) about the price. I understand that it's a recession but sometimes I feel that all of this talk in the media telling people to challenge prices has less them to being rude. Sometimes I just can't listen to it. So to save my sanity these boxes are on sale exclusively in my etsy shop. I will be also adding oval and square boxes in a little while.