It's no secret here at Stampington & Company that I have started a collection of empty bagel boxes. Every now and then we will have bagels for brunch and I've made it a habit to leave a post-it note on the boxes that clearly says "save for Vanessa". The shape and style of the boxes really caught my eye one day and I just knew that they would be perfect to repurpose into gift boxes. There are so many items that can be repurposed into gift giving boxes or bags. I can't wait to use the boxes next time I'm giving a friend or relative a gift and I really hope that they repurpose my gift box by using it yet again for another gift. I began by painting the outsides of the boxes first using my favorite color combination: green and purple. The Pomegranateand Moss were the paints I used and complimented each other really well. I also used the Sand paint to accent the top areas of the boxes. Once the paint had dried I lined the inside of the boxes by using old text paper from a reader's digest book. I recently grabbed a bunch of Readers Digest books from the free bin at my local thrift store and knew the text papers would come in handy. To glue the paper to the inside of the boxes I used Collage Pauge. The lining of the box not only improves the look of the inside but it also reinforces the box to make it sturdier. Once the Collage Pauge had dried I trimmed off any excess paper from the top handles and opening of the box using a craft knife. To embellish the front of the purple box I stamped the Dancing Tulip image using Sand acrylic paint stamping three flowers on each side. Once the paint dried I thought the flowers would look interesting with some text to compliment the inside. To do this I stamped the same flower onto a piece of paper with regular ink then cut out the flower and used it as a template to cut out all the text paper flowers. I then glued them all onto the already stamped flowers onto the box with the Collage Pauge. For the final touch I painted all the stems of the flowers with the Moss acrylic paint. For the green box I used the Christine Adolph collage cube stamp and stamped the same image three times on each side to create decorative, distressed banner around the middle. I stamped the images using the Pomegranate acrylic paint. Once the paint had dried I glue small strips of the text paper around the middle. I then used a Vintaj filigree flower and placed it on top of some text and cut out the flower shape, glued the paper flower onto the middle of one of the sides of the box and then used the DG3 to glue the filigree flower on. Fill your gift boxes with recycled tissue paper, shredded paper, excelsior or anything to fit the green theme.
