Autumn Gift Box

And now for something a little different….

For some, Starbuck’s Pumpkin Spice Latte heralds the true beginning of autumn. I may not be one of those folks, but that didn’t dampen my excitement when some instant Starbucks Via arrived in a recent care package… in Pumpkin Spice Latte flavor! Really, it doesn’t just say “Pumpkin Spice.” There were enough to share, so I pulled out a couple for friends. Then I added a couple Spiced Apple Cider K-Cups. Then I added an extra Halloween decoration sign I made last year; this one asked “Got Candy?” Once I had this smile pile of goodies, I didn’t want to merely plop them into my friends’ hands; thus started my quest for a suitably decorated container.

My breakthrough came when I spotted an old oatmeal box in the pile of boxes on my desk that are awaiting their turn at being made into beautiful die cut elements. I pulled out one of my backs of reusable packaging materials, and was surprised to find that I actually had orange tissue paper! I also had some green plastic strapping bands that I pulled off of a box last month and the shade of green went well with the orange, so I added that to my materials pile. The front of the box was going to need more embellishment than just the strapping band, so I searched through my stash of paper for a few coordinating pieces. It took me 2 or 3 tries before I settled on my final paper/die cut/layer combination.

To start my gift packaging, I mixed a little red and metallic gold acrylic craft paint into a larger amount of orange acrylic paint, then used a foam brush to paint two layers onto the outside of the oatmeal box.

The paint somewhat obscured the text on the box, although it was much better after gluing on the orange tissue paper. I used a good old glue stick to adhere the tissue to the box, having learned last week how dreadful other adhesives look through tissue paper. When I laid the tissue on the sticky glue, I intentionally wrinkled the paper a little so that the half-inch tissue border I left over the top edges of the box would have a bit of wave texture. The oatmeal box ingredients still showed through a bit on the sides of the box, but a second and third layer of tissue took care of that.

After trimming the tissue paper edges, I used some E6000 glue to affix the green plastic strapping band all the way around the middle of the box. That glue choice may have been overkill, but I didn’t want that band to move. Ever. My original idea for the centerpiece embellishment on the front of the box was to use a stamped sentiment about autumn as the focal point of multiple die cut layers, but it turned out that I didn’t have any autumn-related stamps with me. Instead, I found a delightful little vintage piece in Authentique’s “Thrilling” Halloween stack that says “A treat is better shared with a friend.” I cut that out and stuck it to a fancy die cut dark yellow glitter cardstock piece (Spellbinders Shapeabilities Ornate Squares, DCWV Glitter Brights stack). The base layer of my embellishment was die cut using Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 13 from white polka dotted orange paper from the Authentique stack. Once I did the final layout prior to gluing everything down, I realized that there wasn’t enough contrast between the yellow glitter and the orange polka dot papers. So I die cut a smaller Spellbinders Label 13 from DCWV black Glitzy Glitter paper, and that added the lacking contrast. I adhered the bottom two layers together, glued it to the box front over the strapping band, then added the top sentiment layer with pop dots.

{Crafted while listening to Florence + the Machine’s “How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful” album}

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