How-To: Box Covering

Do you remember I mentioned that I ordered boxes for my button cluster necklaces that were way too small? Well I ordered new ones which are the perfect size, but the wrong colour, so not one to shy away from a little extra work I decided to cover the boxes in wrapping paper. Or rather the little OCD voice in my head wouldn't allow myself to leave them plain card and not matching the other boxes. So armed with a scissors, wrapping paper from Pennies and A LOT of double sided tape I covered 12 jewellery boxes(btw I get my double sided tape in the €2 store, don't attempt this at home if you are paying the normal ridiculous price from a craft shop).

After doing the first one I worked out a system. Firstly cover two of the long sides(if rectangular) with tape, bringing the strips around the corners by about an inch. Then do four strips on the underside of the box. Also put four strips on the inside lip of the box too. Now your box is prepped. 

Cut out a piece of light wrapping paper that is at least 2 1/2" bigger on all sides. Remove the backing from the tape and place firmly face down on the reverse of the paper.

Make a cut in the paper that run parallel to the longest side of the box, repeat this for the four corners. What you should be left with are two long strips either side that you can fold up and two smaller ones in the middle.

Trim the edges of these longer strips by about an inch on all four sides. Then remove the backing for your tape on the one of the long sides of your box. Delicately fold up the paper, you are left with two tabs either side that can be folded around the corners to go onto your overlap of tape. Repeat this step on the opposite side.

Now remove the tape from the inside of the these side panels. Because my box was quite shallow I didn't need to make any cuts in the paper, I was just able to fold them down.

You are now left with the two side panels. Just add some double sided tape to the two edges, and fold up repeating the last two steps above.

If the bottom part of your box is visible you can cut out an insert of paper to go inside to cover the last panel, just tape in with double sided tape.

Repeat all the above parts of the tutorial for the lid of your box, and hey presto you have a pretty box. This seems like a lot of work the first time you do it, but you find yourself getting into a rhythm pretty quickly.

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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.