 Hello, and welcome to ACMI's Holiday Crafting Series. I'm here to share with you many ideas for the holidays to work with boxes. Yes, boxes and cards and all kinds of things. And here's a big box that I saved. And guess what's inside? Christmas cards from past years. And there are all kinds of ways to use Christmas cards to cut them up, make collages, all kinds of things. But here's my favorite idea. I found a candy box and I decorated it. And then I put a picture of my friends on it. This was a photograph of Tom and Karen that was taken two years ago. So I cut it out and I put it on this candy box or a nut box. And then guess what? Then I took my iPad and I took a picture of it. And instead of sending cards this year to certain people, you could send them a box that was decorated with your friends' pictures on it. How fun is that? For example, if I wanted to change this and send it to another set of friends, I will just have cut out pictures of my friends and put it on the box. Then I get my iPad and I photograph it and I send it to them. Happy holidays, my friends. All right, well that's a fun idea. And then moving over here do some of the simpler things and then the more complex things. And it's wonderful to think of using things, reusing boxes, jars, cards, and that's what I've done. So this is just a box that I think was bought at the dollar store. Now you could decorate this and use it. You might have had it at home. I just put a little red ribbon around it. I just got started with this box. And here's a little snowman. And I could just poke it right there. And then this could be a box that is gifted to someone. Just a very simple idea. Now here is a set of cylindrical boxes. One is wooden and one is cardboard. And I made this really sweet little plover box just by cutting out a picture of a plover. And then I put match podge on it. It's a kind of a thick gooey or a paste like substance that you can get at playtime. And then you put it over anything and it looks like glass or plastic. It's just beautiful. Now here's a cardboard box that I got at the dollar store. And just watch how sweet this could be. Here's a picture of a little girl. And I already cut out, measured a cut out here. And see how easy this would be to make a sweet baby box, a treasure for someone. And you just cut. Here's a little baby. And then you would glue it right on the top of this box. And how sweet would that be as a little gift. And you could add little accents here and there, whatever you want to do. All kinds of things you can do. So two more ideas here. Here's one, a box that I made. And I was just fascinated with the little maple pieces that came from the trees on the bike path. And I collect sticks. So I made these dragonfly boxes. And they just are, I don't know, they're just so sweet. Well, they're empty without anything in them. And a lot of people would say, oh, thank you for this box. But, well, you get doctor it up a little bit. Spray gold on it, make it a little fancier. And then take it another step. Put little cards inside that people can fill in. Today I wish. Today I am. Today I believe. Today I know. Today I will. And today I hope. Now they look kind of plain. But then you could get out your markers and some little designs you could make. And then make these onto cute little cards. I just got started with this. If it were me, I'd be doodling all over it. See what you might do. And then when you give it as a gift, you just put these together. And you open it up. And you put these in the box. And there you have a lovely gift. Inexpensive, creative and fun. All right. I don't know about you, but I don't love having medicine jars and things around on my nightstand. So I like to decorate things. So I started to do that with this little jar. And I made a little piece of clay to put along the top and cooked it and molded it. And I could go a little farther. Now I don't know if you know about these little stones. You can buy them at Michael's. And they're wonderful. You can put pictures underneath them and make things look a little bit happier and more fun. So watch. I'm just going to put a little bit of glue around the outside. And I'm going to put a little snowman on this like this. And then I'm going to just attach this with this nice goop glue to the top of my bottle. And then it doesn't look so medicinal. And what's even more fun is to take jars maybe that you've had cream in and to find all pins and pieces of jewelry. And this was a pin I made for my mom years ago. I keep everything. So this really works out well as the top for this little jar. Is that not pretty? And I have another pin that I made with petals. This is made with Sculpey clay. Just little petals all fit together. And what I would do is take the glue and just glue it on this jar. And you have a pretty little giveaway jar. You can put peanuts in it, M&Ms, trinkets, pins, safety pins, whatever. But a wonderful way to recycle things. I love recycling. So I've shown you how to make this circular boxes. This little box and the little jars and these wonderful little boxes. Now here's an idea to use a lot of your old pieces of jewelry. Just make a collage. This was a pin. And then Amazon has wonderful feathers. I love buying feathers and using them. In fact, I might even decorate another box that I have when the feathers come. And here's another box that I decorated. And I made this little piece out of clay. So let's see what we might do if we started out with a box. We have this little empty box. I made a mold of an angel out of sculpey clay. And then put glitter on it. Take just a little bit of glue and glue it to the back. And put it on the box. Looks kind of plain. So let's look around for some things. Ah, let's try this. I'm a collector. I collect all kinds of things so I have no idea how things are going to go together, but it's just fun to play. So just play during the holidays with little things that you have tucked away that you never thought you might use. Now isn't that cute? You could go on and on with this by putting little beads, little sequins, little pearls, all kinds of things. This is just an idea to get you started. All right. So this box I made at some time. This is a little fancy, but if you're into making collages, this to me is the sweetest little collage box. And it's wonderful to pick natural things up off the bike path. And then these are little pieces of painted wood that I stick in here. And I love making these little babies. These are made out of clay. And here's another one. I made a little baby, a little sleepy Christmas baby, just sleeping on the beach. So sweet. You could use her in many of the different places that I have already shown you. Like it could go on a box top. It could go, that's already been used, but I bet you have lots of ideas yourselves if you're watching. So let's go over to my favorite of all boxes. This could be a wonderful candy box. Or a friend of mine was in the hospital during the winter and we didn't want to send her flowers, but she loves chocolates. So I made this box and I'll show you the box in just a minute. You can get it on Amazon. It's a wonderful hard fold-up box. You could put all kinds of things in these boxes. Here's a little fairy. I love making fairies and elves as a theme. You see this? She's so sweet there. And here is the box. It comes. You can get a set of three of these. And I think this is a wonderful, wonderful thing to get. Look at this. It has a magnetic clasp. It's sturdy. You can send it in the mail and decorate it and make it into a beautiful, beautiful holiday box of candy. Goodies. These are little like fairy angels I make out of natural materials. And I could stick one right on the top. I'm not going to stick her on right now, but just give you an idea. Go around your house. Look for a treasured piece. Put it on top. You might like to add little pieces, feathers. A little bit of greenery. You don't have to get as fancy as I did, but just fine little things, little sticks, little feathers. I mean, how simple is that? And then I took a gold paint and I dabbed it all over here. But there are all kinds of ways to decorate this wonderful, wonderful box. You might also like to do something as simple as use a photograph. And last winter, when I was doing stories and art for children, I had pictures that would amuse the children. And this was a picture of, it looks like a shoe horse with animals in it. And you could decorate this with all kinds of little things, little bees, little sequins, little things that twinkle. Just make it simple for yourself. If you don't like to get as complex as I do, I kind of like to take things as far as I can. But see what you think. Okay, well, now, thank you for watching. And I hope that I've given you lots of good ideas for the holidays. And the next program I will do, I will be showing you how to use your cards, Christmas cards, to recycle them, make collages with them and use all kinds of materials to make new kinds of Christmas cards and gift cards and little packets if you're sending credit cards. Lots of creative things to look forward to. So thank you for watching. Happy holidays, happy crafting.