Google+ House Revivals: A Vintage Inspired Giftbox

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

A Vintage Inspired Giftbox

Remember the woven stars that I made for my mother-in-law?  Well, they needed to be packaged up and put in the mail, but first I needed to find a gift box that was just as special as the stars.  The stars were woven from folded strips of vintage book pages.  I chose an old gardening book, because my mother-in-law has such an amazing green thumb.   So, what do you think, is this box worthy of her stars?

I wanted a round box that was sturdy enough to store the stars year after year.   After quite a bit of searching for the perfect box, I found this.


Isn't it beautiful?


Really, it was almost perfect!

It just needed to be covered in vintage book paper, and it needed to be made taller, to fit three woven stars.  Piece of cake.  Covering the box with vintage paper was easy -- I just glued the paper on.  Since we had a bit of a time crunch, I just used a high tack white glue.


I covered the both the box and the lid before extending the height.  To extend the height, I cut a strip of cardboard and glued it into a circle, using the lid as a guide.


I then cut a second, narrower strip and glued it around the first cardboard ring.  This was to build out the thickness at the top of the box so the lid would fit snugly.  Because of the added bulk on the inside of the lid from the vintage book paper, the lid would not have fit if we had built out the top flush with the original sides, but we did need to build it out a little bit.


Here the cardboard ring is not glued to the box, yet -- we're just checking the fit.


The cardboard ring was then covered in book paper and glued into the box, extending the height just enough to fit all three stars, and for the lid to sit nicely.


First, the original star is wrapped in tissue paper.  In the spirit of re-use, we used pieces from an old dress pattern.


Next, the second star was wrapped in pattern tissue.


And finally, the last star was wrapped ....


....and added to the gift box.


Do you think she will be excited when she opens her package from the postman, and finds this box tucked into the newspaper?


I hope she likes it.  I think she will. 



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