Odds and Ends

Disclaimer - No punch art today

But if you come just 'cause you like me and my blather, I do have something else to show you.

I mentioned that I "saved" my hubby a bunch of money at a 40% OFF sale.  This box is one of the things I got

It started out as a plain white shiny box and in just one afternoon I got it all "fancy" and cute for my desk to fill with odds and ends.

VERY little of this is SU product - but I wanted to use up some "other stuff" and I wanted to use something that I wasn't tired of seeing all the time - so I dug down in the stash a few inches (or feet or yards - I'm not telling how deep the stash really is)

One of the things I like best about SU is the coordination of colors - if you have paper - you have ink that will coordinate.  So this little box was a little more work than I'm used to - and a little frustrating at times but that just made me use my thinking cap.

Three of the papers I used were part of a line of paper so they coordinate but the frogs, the red flower and the brown dots were just odd bits that I added in.  Pretty brave of me and I'm very happy with the result.

I used up some retired chipboard pieces to frame some of the handles and I used a BIG piece on the back

Don't ask me what happened to the color  - my daughters are not jaundiced at this point in time - and I didn't change the lighting from the first pictures (haunted camera, I guess).  That chipboard heart is hiding the seam in the paper where I had to piece things - there is another piece point but it wasn't as obvious so I left it.

I left the "top" open on the back so I can swap out photos if I want to.

Here are some tips if you ever decide to tackle covering a similar box:

It was GLARING white so I tried to ink the "edges" to distress them.  Ink didn't "stick" to the gloss - so I got out my sanding block and roughed up the shine and sponged on some ink BEFORE I covered it in paper.

Go for a distressed look because it hides your boo boos

To attach the paper - I cut then applied mod podge (matte finish) to the back of the paper with a foam brush (1 inch wide throw away kind).  Start in the middle and brush out to the edges.  Stick onto the box and you have a few seconds to "move" the paper to the correct spot.  Then take your bone folder on its side and burnish your paper down.

Now I need to go fill up the drawers with all my little embellishments that I forget about and start using them!