The Gift

For my first art related task I didn't actually choose a Pinterest item. I was feeling pretty crafty on my own so I decided to send my friend Kate an early holiday package.

I found a box that was less than attractive but would fit the items I wanted to send:

I then glued fabric to the inside of the box using mod podge. I didn't put fabric on the tabs (you can see they are still white) because of the way the box closes. These tabs need to slide into the front of the box and I was worried adding anything to them would make this difficult.

Next I found some twine (actually left over cooking twine from Thanksgiving). I laid a length of this on the bottom of the box with enough coming out of the box on either side to be able to tie a bow after everything was packed in. The "why" will make more sense in the finished picture later in the post.

      

Then I laid a piece of brown craft paper over the twine with enough extra on the sides to cover the items I was going to put in the box. Again, this may make more sense when looking at the final product. I added the gifts next. (I did pack some extra paper around the items so they wouldn't move in shipping.)

        

Next, I folded the paper over the gifts - so it looked nice. I like to fold about an inch on the ends of paper "under" before wrapping my presents so the cut lines aren't visible. I did the same thing with this so the ends looked a little more polished. I tied the twine in a fancy knot (since it was still layered under the paper) and added a tag that matched the fabric I had lined the box with. 

Now on to the ugly outside.

Remember?

I was going to figure out a way to glue more fabric over the front of the box to cover all of the old writing and stickers. BUT THEN I thought - what if I photocopy a fabric piece onto a white shipping label? My printer has a color scanner/photocopier function. I used a full 8.5"x 11" white shipping label sheet (from some office store - I've had these for about six years). I put a piece of fabric on the scanning glass and pushed "copy." It turned out - "pretty much awesome."

Even the frayed bits photocopied and looked neat!

From that it was as easy as adding a label to a box. I cut the label to the size of the top of the box and  +BAM+ new lid. 

Yes, that is the printed label!

I added two white labels with addresses - I wanted to keep with the cloth theme so I used some fancy scissors to cut a border. Be warned if you try this. My scissors were dull and I found that if I didn't have "enough" label on each side to cut the scissors would actually pull the label off the backing and would stick to my scissors. But I finally succeeded. And then, as I always do - I thought more would be more and drew a stupid flower on the "To:" label. Sigh.  At least this was the only thing I didn't like about the project!

I did put clear packing tape across the entire front of the box since the label was printed with my inkjet printer and wouldn't stand up to rain.

I'm excited to try more things with the printed fabric! I am working on a washer necklace project I think this would work really well with and I'm also wondering if it would be possible to make a photocopied quilt... I haven't searched either of these ideas yet, but almost want to try them on my own first so I don't spoil the surprise! (I will add links to these projects if I end up doing them.) 

References: None this time. "I made this."