Gingerbits: Wedding Memory Box

- by Carol Fox

I have decided to put two of my favourite themes together for this project, vintage and altered, to make a memory box to keep all those little wedding mementoes in that you seem to accumulate from the big day : the little knick knacks that you collect because they are pretty, but really have no use for. I personally have apart from the usual bits, like the odd cake decoration and champagne cork, a small bag of the used confetti that was thrown at me as I left the church, a rather random drawing that someone did of me at the reception, and ohh so many little bits that needed a home. So I am going to rehouse them and show you how I have done it along the way.

I started with a plain wooden box that I kept all the hardware on as I wanted to age it with the box. My box measures 24 x 15 cm and is 7cm high.

I gave it a coat of cream acrylic paint, painting over the hinges and clasp, dry it with my heat gun and then lightly sanding it down and then wiping with a dry cloth before giving it a second coat with the same paint. I now put my lid back on my paint and balanced the box on it to dry, so it did not stick to my work surface. You can dry it with a heat gun, but keep the heat moving over the box because if you heat the paint to much it will bubble and at this point you need it to stay smooth and pretty so you can make it old and manky later.

When dry gently ease the lid open to free it from where the paint has sealed it shut. Close it again to carry on.

Pick up a very SMALL blob of pale brown paint on a wet baby wipe and work it onto the top and sides of the box in the direction of the grain, apply and removing the paint as you go so you get an uneven and aged finish as opposed to a layer, applying more to the edges and around the locks and hinges, the natural places where you would get wear to the paint from the box being handled. I now lightly sanded the box again.

I now gave it a coat of glue and seal, matt or gloss it makes no difference, its only to prepare the surface for stamping onto. (if your stamping goes wrong you can remove it before it drys as the glue and seal stops it sinking into the paint).

Then stamped all my images using black archival ink, using a stamp positioner and masking where necessary. ( the acrylic blocks with grid lines are very handy when stamping onto 3D items as they really help you line up your images) I now took a black dabber and inked all the edges off the box to make the black stamping less stark and to bring the whole thing together.

Paint a large grungeboard flourish with distress crackle. When dry, colour it slightly with distress inks and distress stickles until you are happy with its appearance.

The roses are made using the Tim Holtz Pine cone die and you can see how to make them from a tutorial he has here on his blog  I did not use Core'dinations (Kraft-Core) for mine as I dont have any. I used a textured printed card and then once they were assembled and dry I sprtized them with walnut stain and a bit of moon-shadow mist, lastly adding some distress stickles once they were dry.

Lay everything on top of your box and once happy glue them all down into position.

This is it the basic box. You can see from the photo at the start of this post that I have added other little odds and ends to the lid box, but as these are not hand made I have not included them in the tutorial. They are just odd bits and pieces from my personal stash.

This took me a couple of hours from start to finish to make. Boxes like these are fun to alter, fairly inexpensive, make great little gifts and very easy to adapt to your own style.

If I have inspired you at all I would love to see what you make and you can share your own creations via the Unruly PaperArts Facebook Group.

If anyone has any questions I can be contacted via my blog and I will be happy to help.