 Hi everybody, it's Simon from Mixed Up Crowd. Thank you for watching today. I'm going to be showing you how to alter or just decorate a simple wooden box. So this box here I picked up from a place called The Works that we have in the UK and it was £3. So very inexpensive, you can get all different shape sizes, you know they just come in a simple wood grain and then you basically just you know decorate them how you want. So what I've already gone ahead and done is I've covered this in some white paints. I've just gone along and covered everything and you can just see now I'm just unscrewing the clip, the lock from the front and also the hinges on the back. Really I should have done that beforehand but I wasn't really thinking. However the paint I've got is just I can wipe it straight off anyway so it wasn't a problem. So you can just see there and then I've just got the kind of raw wood effect underneath. Now this is going to be a gift for my Nan. So I actually made this and gave it to her for Christmas and you'll see over on my blog some pictures of her with it which she absolutely loved. So I'm really really pleased this was yeah for it it just goes to show you don't need to spend a lot of money to make someone very happy. So she was yeah she just kept going to this. Other people had spent loads of money on her and I brought her some other nice presents as well but she just kept going to this box and it become a bit of a thing on Christmas day because everybody was like oh great yeah she loves your box she loves your box so yeah we all had a good giggle. So I'm just going through the gorgeous mariposa papers from Fest Edition and you can see here I've just pulled out this really lovely that green kind of foliage for the top and then also that lovely flower print to the left there which will be going on the box as well. Now I do end up using lots of different of you know the the sheets through there because there was just so many lovely papers. So what I'm doing is I'm just sticking it down with my tombo glue so it's just nice and strong and I'm just spreading all that glue out there with my Teflon bone folder. I'm going to be sealing the whole of the box afterwards so I wasn't too worried you know just making sure obviously it was all stuck down. Now because of the shape of this particular box I couldn't lie it down flat because of the lip at the front so I'm having to hold my hand underneath there but you can see I managed to draw the shape that I need and then to get a nice straight edge I use my trimmer there just to get that really crisp and then you can see I've just cut in slightly under the pencil line because I want to still continue with a nice white border all the way throughout all of these kind of layers that I put on each side of the box because I quite like the way the white comes through and then I end up just roughing that up at the very end and just stressing it a little bit just to kind of make it look a little bit vintage. So I'm just cutting these curved sides now with my snips and then I can get that all stuck down and I just end up tracing that one you can see there I've got a nice white border just small just about one-eighth of an inch but it just really frames the papers and you can see there I've just drawn around the same one there for the backside so it just saves you having to go and hold it all up again but if you're using just a simple square box I will link all of these boxes on my blog as well because they are they're great ways to just you know great ways to make storage for your craft room but also making lovely gifts like I said she adores this she actually keeps all her tablets in it now and it just looks really nice on you know in her house on her kind of side table rather than you know she just had this little kind of rubbish little box really beforehand so this is a lot more nicer. As you can see now I'm just again sticking it down with the same tombo glue and yeah it's starting to really come together it's surprising how quickly you know adding these papers really starts to transform and it's it's a solid box so I know it's going to last you know a long time so again I'm going through those papers and just pulling out more of those gorgeous papers they all work well together they've all got you know bits of the same colour in in some form so they do all tie in nicely. This was you know the sides were relatively easy to do they're just on a curve so you have to just kind of you know play around a little bit but again this is all it was was just me trimming cutting measuring trimming cutting measuring all the way through really but like I said if you've got a plain square it will be even quicker to do so have a little look and yeah you'll be able to find them they also have these boxes very similar in hobby craft and all craft stores will do the very thick chipboard boxes as well you can do this with those as long as you just do your primer you know prime your the box first with some you know white paint or whatever then that will obviously help when you come to stick everything else down so you can see there again I'm just now sticking down that side and just keep spreading out all that glue I wanted to make sure there's no air bubbles and all the glue had spread out so it just kind of come out the sides but that's what I wanted so now I'm doing exactly the same with the kind of side pieces there so I've already gone and trimmed it and I'm just doing the sides there again just the same way as I did the larger side pieces again just giving it that nice little white frame again spread out all of that glue with my bone folder and I've just really gone and clashed all of the prints really like I said they all do match but I have clashed because on the backs of a lot of these papers in the first edition packs towards the back of the paper pack you have you know double sides and there's plain like stripes or just plain and you can you know obviously do that to match the papers but I wanted a bit more of a clash look so I've done that and I think it actually does work very well so again just finishing off really all of those sides and like you can see what I mean it just it I think it really really works lovely so now I've kind of skipped ahead a little bit and started to work on the inside so I've done the two squares there and then I'm just doing exactly the same so everything's the same kind of size just a little bit smaller because obviously you've got the wood where it's been put together those inside panels are a little bit smaller to the outer ones but again just exactly the same way that I've done the inside was a little bit more tricky I guess for the front and back panels but the side ones were the same very easy to do it's just on that curve and you can see me doing it there but every single one I just make sure I go through and spread out and you can see just by giving it that little white frame I think really does it also helps you as well if you get if you're slightly off with the measurements and stuff if you've got that white frame even if it's a slightly thicker frame to another panel if you try and get them perfect and exactly that width I don't think it would work so well so now I'm just sealing it with a clear glue here and just going over the whole thing I did use my heat gun but you can just leave it to dry overnight and this just seals all of the card or paper that you're using and gives it a nice shine just makes it very durable you can see now once that's dry how that starts to look and then I'm just going back now and screwing in my lock at the front and also the hinges at the back as well so there you go look how nice that looks and especially with the shine you can see where it's all sealed up looks really really lovely so now I just wanted to decorate a little bit now because this is going to be used you know a couple times a day for when my nan needs to take her her pills so I didn't want something I started to bring the butterflies in I thought no they're just going to I think they were just going to get in the way and probably end up getting ruined so I've got in I've got in I've brought in this doily dye and I've done it in the white but I thought it looked a little bit lost against the paper that I used there so I've got just brought in these American crafts letters and my nan is called Evelyn so Eve for short so I'm going to personalize this box for her so now I've die cut that doily in the same purple that's in the pattern paper on the very front and now I am putting nan on it instead so it was going to be Eve and then I changed it to nan and I'm sticking with that purple now it was still looking a bit too plain but I didn't want to have anything 3d on this because I just think over time it would get caught and it would probably end up just falling off so everything stays quite flat so I've just gone and created this strip to just stick along the very top of the lid there and then I'm going to start building up everything on top and I just think it just gave it something but still made it a lot more you know easy to use then I'm sealing that off again with the same glue so just getting it right in all the little cracks all in all the detail there on the doily and all on that strip and again just let that kind of dry but by doing this it's just going to make this box last a lot longer and you can see now that's dry you've got that nice shine to it and yeah it's all coming along nicely so now I'm popping down those stickers again so I've got the word nan and as always I always stick these down with some extra glue just because I don't trust them so I just think it was really nice to personalize the box and I think that's what really done it for her she just adores the fact that she's got this really pretty little box and again I'm going over that with another layer just to really be sure that everything is stuck down and it just makes this easy to clean so she can wipe it if she needs to or you know when she's doing her polishing and stuff she can go over this and it won't damage it at all and there you go you can see how lovely that looks and it was very very quick for me to do very inexpensive for me to do yeah it it's made such a beautiful gift and of course if you want this to be more of a decorative piece then you can really go to town you can put 3d you know flowers on top all those gorgeous like prima flowers and paper flowers would look really nice and almost make it a bit like a mixed media project and start to bring in more kind of you know hardware and bits and pieces like that so yeah there's certainly scope to do a lot more than I've done I'm just showing you a very simple way to decorate it yeah I think it looks you know really really lovely so like I said I did distress the the white a little bit more which you maybe can pick up in the in the pictures but I was really pleased with this and so was my nan so there you go thought I'd share this one with you showing again those gorgeous mariposa papers which are available from by first edition and I will share all the links to where you can purchase them from and also where you can get hold of the box so I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and I'll be back again soon with another one thanks for watching bye