Project: Card Box
Inspiration: I knew I wanted to have a card box because I think it really helps guests feel confident about what to do with cards (which often contain valuable, envelope-sized gifts). When attending weddings I know I've felt better when there was somewhere that seemed a little safer than just laying the card on a table. So, I saw some cute ones online, and cute ones in stores. No surprise at this point that they were expensive, so DIY it was!
Cost/Materials: At the very least, you need some boxes and materials to decorate with. Since you can design it however you want, the budget is really in your hands. The boxes can be covered up entirely, so there is plenty of opportunity for upcycling old shoeboxes, etc. I bought a set of nested paper mache ("papier-mâché" if you want to get fancy) boxes at Michaels when they were on sale for about $10, because to me it was worth it to have them perfectly sized and in a natural color. For decor I had some rolls of burlap I got at the fabric/craft section Walmart that had coral chevron painted on them. I didn't want to go very burlap crazy with my decorations, but they were inexpensive and the color was just what I was going for. The rolls are about 10 yards and cost about $3 a piece. They seem to have a large collection of them in different widths with different colors and patterns (including polka dots, lace, etc.) that are priced much lower than at crafts stores or anywhere the word "wedding" allows it to be marked up. You should also have a glue gun or another plan for creating a pretty permanent adhesive to keep everything together, an exacto knife for cutting the card "entrance" spot, plus anything else you want to decorate it with. I used a handful of wood chip hearts that I found in the basement that were mixed in with craft supplies from when we were kids and painted them in the wedding colors. The perfect touch that I just happened across in Hobby Lobby was a little paper mache mailbox ($1 at regular price for the size I got). They have them in all kinds of sizes, but I liked this tiny one to put atop my boxes to make sure it was clear what the box was for. And just to be super sure, I also labeled it "CARDS" with cork letters I had leftover from another project that I'll post about soon. The cork letters are from Michaels in the Natural Threads collection and I love them! The last thing I used was scrap pieces of paper in our colors to make the fake "love letters" and to emphasize where we had cut the hole for cards.
How I Did It: The first thing to do is make a plan for the structure: decide where the card hole will go and whether you want the boxes stacked evenly versus on angles, etc. Next, cut the appropriate holes. For me, having three boxes, I decided the middle one would have the card entrance and the cards would fall from there into the bottom box, so I cut three holes: one for the cards to enter on the side of the middle box, one large hole in the bottom of the middle box to let the cards fall down, and the third was in the top piece for the largest box (again, to let the cards make their way to the bottom). Measure these out and mark them off with a pencil before cutting so you can ensure that you like the size/location. You'll also want to make sure you don't cut the holes between the boxes too large, or you could risk ruining the structural integrity of the middle box, or making the large box's hole so big that the middle box falls in! Measure twice, cut once! That's a thing, right? Next I added the burlap. As you can see in the first picture in this section, I overlayed the burlap on the part with the card entrance so that I would know how much of the burlap to cut out before gluing it on. I didn't worry about the pencil lines I made or cutting it perfectly, because I knew I was going to cover up any messiness later on. By keeping the burlap pulled taught, I was able to put the glue on only two places on each box: first, I put it all along the top of the inside of the boxes, and folded the fabric in, and then I put it along the outside corner edge where the cut ends of the fabric met. Other than that, I did not glue anywhere along the outside of the box, because I didn't want to risk creating any lumpy areas. When this was done and dry, I cut a piece of yellow scrap paper into a hollow rectangle and added it over the card entrance, to make it easy to see. (mom's idea - she's a genius). I then painted up the mailbox in our colors, let it dry, and stuffed in some fake "love letters" (pieces of patterned scrap book paper that I just folded up and stuck inside). For the hearts, I wanted it to look like they were naturally spilling out of the mailbox. To try it out, the first thing I did was just drop the hearts all over, letting them spill out of my hand and seeing where they naturally fell. Next I made some little tweaks here and there, and I started gluing them down to recreate the look. The reason I glued them is because I want to be sure no one needs to worry about setting up the hearts or anything like that on the day of the wedding, or worry about knocking them off or losing some in transport. They're pretty secure. The "CARDS" was made by stringing some clear jewelry thread through the letters and hot gluing to ensure it would stay; more on the cork letters in a future post.
The Outcome: Pretty cute, right? I didn't glue all the boxes to each other yet because I wanted to be able to nest them a bit for storage since the big day is over a year away, but I will hot glue them to each other when we are closer.
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