Love Letters Altered Box - Cuttlebug Creatively Yours Spotlight Sunday

Welcome to this week's Cuttlebug Creatively Yours Spotlight Sunday!

My name is Christine Penaflor, and it's my pleasure to be here with you today! I will be sharing an altered box project which is perfect for holding all the cards and letters that we've received on Valentine’s Day and other special occasions. I will also share a tutorial for making this box so you may create one for yourself.

Here's a look at what I will be sharing with you today:

For this project, you will need:

• A box to be altered (I used a wooden box that I bought from Michael’s).
• Decoupage medium – Modge Podge or Aleen’s Instant Decoupage Medium (matte)
• Acrylic paint - Plaid
• Shimmerz paint - Angel Wings
  
• Glitter glue – Martha Stewart
• Foam brushes
• Coordinating papers – 3 sheets – Creative Imaginations (red), SEI (striped), Around the Block (aqua)
• Glitter paper – Marcella by K
• Transparency overlay – Creative Imaginations Narratives Frame
• Cuttlebug alphabet dies – Olivia Font
• Cuttlebug border dies – Floral Borders Set
• Flowers, rhinestones – Prima
• Flower punch – EK success
• Border punch – Fiskars Threading Water Punch
• Bingo card – Jenni Bowlin
• Heart shaped doily – craft store
• Metal nameplate - Basic Grey
  
• Glittered leaf pick – Michael’s
• Flat back pearls - Michael's
  
• Vintage tickets – Tim Holtz, craft store
• Zots 3-D adhesive dots
  
• Lace/trim – craft store
• Sewing machine (optional)
  

Directions:

Prepare the box to be altered by sanding any rough edges until you have a smooth finish. For this project, I used a wooden box that is approximately 12.25” length x 10” width x 3” tall (see photo 1).



For the bottom of the box:

• Cut four pieces of striped paper long enough to cover each side of the box.
  
• Create four strips of ½” wide scalloped glitter borders using a border punch. (see photo 2).

• Using decoupage medium, adhere the striped papers to the sides of the box and trim as necessary around the corners of the box (see photo 3).

• Adhere glitter borders to the bottom edges of the box to complete the bottom of the box (see photo 3).

For the top of the box:

• Paint the edges of the top of the box using paint that coordinates with the patterned papers (see photo 4).

• Cut a piece of light colored patterned paper so that you have a ¼” border along all four sides. Stitch a border about 1/8” away from the edge of the paper using a sewing machine (optional). Using glitter glue, sprinkle glitter along the edges of patterned paper (see photo 5). Alternatively, you may use Stickles glitter glue to avoid this mess. :) Adhere paper to the top of the box.

• Cut out the frame from the transparency overlay. Cut a piece of patterned paper to fit the area inside of the frame. Adhere frame to paper and stitch a border using a sewing machine (optional). Adhere to the top of the box as shown in photo 6.

• Die cut three borders (although only two are shown in the photo) and the word “letters” from glittered paper (see photo 7).

• Adhere bingo card, flower, die cut border, and leaves to the top of the box as shown in photo 8. Tip: to create the swirls shown in the photo below, simply cut apart the die cut borders into different sized pieces and re-assemble into swirls.
  

• Cover a doily with Shimmerz Angel Wings paint using an aqua brush (see photo 9). Allow to dry. Adhere doily on top of bingo card as shown in photo 10.

• Adhere the metal nameplate to the top of the box with Zots 3-D adhesive dots (I prefer using these because they provide great adhesion and dimension, too). Embellish the corners of the nameplate with flat back pearls.
  
• Adhere the die cut letters inside of the nameplate as shown in photo 10.
• Embellish the top of the box with remaining flowers, die cut borders, vintage tickets, and glitter leaves. I glued down parts of the glitter swirls and left other parts free to lay on top of some of the embellishments around them like the flowers and leaves. This adds a nice dimensional effect on the project (see detail photo below).
  
• Adhere lace around the edge of the box top to complete the project.

Here's another look at the completed project:


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. I would love to see what you create based on this tutorial so feel free to leave a comment with a link to your creation! You may also contact me through my blog, Creative Journey to let me know what you've created.

Thank you for joining us today! Have a wondeful and blessed Sunday!