Wishing you had some incredibly beautiful storage boxes for all your treasures and decorations? This gift wrapping idea with a twist may be just what you are searching for!
When you make these special gift wrapped boxes you can store away all your cherished ornaments and decorations inside them. If you make these for Christmas as I did, once you put up your Christmas tree you can stack these decoupage gift wrapped Christmas boxes under your tree or perhaps in a corner for further decoration!
If you like decoupage, you will adore these simple to make storage boxes!
You can impress your family and friends with your creativeness. Most likely they will try to talk you out of your set of homemade decoupage storage boxes!
You may want to include the children in this project or help them start one of their own. Children love this type of arts & crafts project! And remember, you do not have to stop with decoupage for Christmas boxes you can make these boxes for any gift giving occasion.
Decoupage is a form of gluing images onto a foundation, in this case that will be cardboard boxes. However, you can decoupage various items. Decoupage is an easy arts & craft project idea.
Here is what I used to make mine:
- Justin Boot Boxes
I collected three different sizes so that they nestle inside one another or sit beautifully on top of one another in a graduated form. I like working with these boot boxes since they are available in different sizes. Ask your friends to save some for you and keep a look out for useable boxes while everyone is opening Christmas presents, birthday gifts, wedding gifts or anniversary gifts.
You can use other types of cardboard boxes for your decoupage gift wrapping project if you like.
- Photos and images from magazines or those you have downloaded from the internet.
You can also use your Christmas wrapping paper, tissue paper and gift wrapping paper for decoupage when you want to continue any special or occasional theme.
I have been cutting images for these boxes for years as well as for other things. I have them organized in various labeled in folders for safekeeping. If you are making a decoupage gift box for another occasion choose your images accordingly.
- Scissors for cutting and trimming your images to fit along the box or boxes you decoupage.
- Decoupage Glue
I prefer using Plaid’s Mod Podge brand decoupage glue.
- Sponge Paint Brush
- A fine grain of sandpaper or a steel wool pad
- Paper towel or old clean rag for cleaning up mess-ups
Ready your boxes by cleaning any dust or particles from them by using a slightly damp cloth to wipe them off and then allow them to dry before you begin.
You can choose the images that you think will look great on your decoupage storage box, while your box dries.
If you have a particular theme of color scheme you can separate those out and have them handy to glue to your box.
I say Christmas now, because I have three decoupage Christmas storage boxes.
The largest box I did in Christmas trees and ornaments. It is mostly Greens with shiny bits and bobs here and there.
The second to the largest box features Angels. It is mostly whites, silvers, and gold and other soft angel colors.
The smallest box features Children’s Toys. There are wooden horses and trucks, dolls and other types of toys that are loved by children. It is a multicolor box.
Whether you are working on one box or more, separate the theme pieces of the images you plan to use.
The next step involves cutting and trimming the images you are planning to use for your decoupage gift wrapped storage boxes.
You can be super neat or you can be primitive in your technique, this is your personal choice for the gift boxes you make.
For instance, some individuals might like the look of tearing the images to fit or burning around the edges.
It all really depends on the look you are trying to achieve that will match your any occasional decorations.
This part is fun, so just take your time!
Keep in mind while working with decoupage glue you will only want to cover the area that you have time to glue images on, therefore the glue does not dry before you are ready to place your images or get all over you while you are working with your decoupage gift wrapped storage boxes.
After getting all your images assembled, you may want to lay the pieces out on the box before actually gluing them to the box. Of course, I think you can only do one side of the box at a time, but you may be more talented than I am in trying to do that. Alternatively, you can just randomly stick and glue your images to the box you are working on.
Once you are ready, you will take your decoupage glue and sponge paintbrush and apply a light coating on the area that you are planning to decoupage. Try not to leave globs of glue, as this causes the paper images to appear unsightly or make bubbles underneath your pictures. Once you have the images applied, you can use a slightly damp rag to smooth out any bubble or lines. However, creases are sometimes unavoidable or add another dimension to your decoupage items. Some individuals are like them and some individuals do not.
Work to smooth them out gently so that you do not tear your images since they are wet with glue.
Take your time doing this and keep in mind, that it does take a while for you decoupage glue to dry fully.
P.S.
After thoroughly covering your box or boxes, you will apply another light layer of decoupage glue over the entire project and then let it sit to dry. You can follow the directions on the back of the decoupage glue.
However, it will tell you to take your fine grain sandpaper of steel wool pad and gently buff or polish the outer layer of decoupage that you just allowed to dry completely.
Doing so will make the finish product shine and have a polished finished when you do it properly.
You can do this if you like or not.
What I did with mine was not do the final buff or polish. I liked the way they looked after allowing them to dry and we have been using them in our home for about 8 or 9 years now and they still look just as good as they did when I first made them.
I also took about three of those large Cookie cartons; I cannot remember the brand right now. However, they have removable lids.
The Justin Boot boxes hold small ornaments that are either homemade, glass or porcelain.
The larger cookie boxes hold all the larger items we use for decorating at Christmas, such as the tree lights, the tree skirt and other decorating items.
Once, we are finished putting up the decorations I place the boxes under the tree, just for decoration.
However, I will tell you a Christmas secret if you promise you will not to tell my children.
Sometimes, when I am in a hurry and do not have the time to wrap their gifts, I hide some of their new things in these Christmas storage boxes.
The kids think they are empty anyway and it makes a great hiding place for us! Shhhh!
© 2009 Sara Valor
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