Retrofabulous Christmas Craftabration: Upcycled Holiday Gift Boxes

Retrofabulous Upcycled Holiday Gift Box Copyright Margot Potter for iLoveToCreate 2011
Inspired By:

Images Copyright McCall's Magazine

(Anyone who knows me knows that I love all things retro. I have been thrifting since I was 19 and have a rather large collection of old paper. I have post cards and magazines dating back to the Victorian age and all the way up to the 1970s. I love old fonts, ads, images...it is all intriguing and wonderful to me. I did a series on my blog called Retrofabulous Craftabration a couple of years ago and now I’m teaming back up with the folks from iLovetoCreate to bring you a dose of retrofabulosity on the first and third Monday of every month.)

Retrofabulous Craftabration: Upcycled Holiday Gift Box
Margot Potter for iLovetoCreate

This project was inspired by a 1968 McCall’s Christmas magazine. They took old shoe boxes and upcycled them into festive holiday gift packages. How funny are these?! Also, whatever happened to that awesome thick yarn?!  It totally makes me want to make pom poms and hair bows!  Note to self: get awesome super thick yarn....stat.

To update this idea, I used some scrapbook paper, sparkly trim, a sentiment cut from a vintage greeting card, odds and ends from the studio and a favorite vintage pic from a 1964 calendar combined with the new Aleene’s paper craft friendly dry adhesive glues to create a kitschy upcycled package. This is a great way to reuse old boxes and to give a gift a fellow crafter can use for festive storage in their studio. You can use wrapping paper, fabric, scrapbook paper, newspaper, magazines, catalogs...add paints and dimensional embellishments... I’d love to see what you do with this idea, if you make a retrofabulous inspired upcycled package leave a link in the comments here!

Materials
Image (I scanned and sized mine)
Old sturdy box
Paper or fabric (I used scrapbook paper)
Trims
Embellishments (buttons, beads, old broken jewelry bits...)
Aleene’s Tacky Line Rolls
Aleene’s Tacky Dot Singles
Aleene’s Quick Dry Tacky Glue
Aleene’s Tacky Double Stick Sheets
Tulip Beads in a Bottle Glitter Paint (I used pink to coordinate with my papers)
Double sided craft tape

Tools
Scissors
Pencil
Decorative edge punch (optional)

1. Select a box-it should be sturdy enough to be used as a gift package and later as storage. Begin by covering the box with paper or fabric. I traced the box panels on paper, cut paper and attached the sheets to each panel using Aleene’s Double Stick Tacky Sheet. Just attach sheet to back of paper, cut to fit and then peel backing off and adhere paper to panel on box. I covered the entire box.

2. To hide the corner edges where papers meet, use decorative trimp. I ran double sided tape along each edge, and attached the trim folding it along both sides of the edge.

3. Add an extra layer of trim on each side of the edges. Measure trim to fit and cut. Place along the Aleene’s Tacky Line and cut glue to fit. Peel up trim and attach to box. You will need to put trim along all of the edges on all five exposed panels. I used two styles of trim, one for the side panels and another for the top panel.

4. If you want to add more paper embellishments to the top of the box, attach them using the Aleene’s Double Stick Tacky sheets. I added an image and also a decorative trim using coordinating paper and an edge punch. This also gave me a place to tuck a sentiment that can be removed later.

5. I had some wooden scrapbook embellishments that coordinated with the project and worked perfectly to conceal the four corners where the trim met on the top of the box. You can use buttons, old jewelry components, scrapbook embellishments, bows...whatever you like. Just one Aleene’s Tacky Dot Single does the trick.

6. I like sparkle, so I used a thin schmearing of Tulip Beads in a Bottle in pink on the background paper on the top of my box. You could also use Collage Pauge in Sparkly to get the same effect. While it is drying the paper will bubble up a little, do not freak out. It will flatten again, I promise!