Art Box

Apologies for a break in the MoW posts. I have had to put this week's second instalment onto the backburner as it isn't yet quite presentable. But since I don't want to leave you, my esteemed readers, waiting, I have decided to break the boredom with a quick post on another crafty project I did this week.

My favourite daughter got into a right panic on Sunday evening when she was getting ready for her first day back in school. She was looking for her old art box - which seemed to have vanished over the summer holidays. In order to dry her tears I suggested we make a new, absolutely unique one-in-a-million art box. One that none of her classmates would have.

I used to make these boxes all the time when I was in college. That was back in the early 90s when all those fabulous b/w photos were used for ads in the magazines for the likes of Calvin Klein and Davidoff and Guess. I made a huge one to keep my record collection in (yeeeeeees - it was back in the good old days. No child, mummy did not have an MP3 player then - we were living in analogue times. However could we exist without digital sound back then????), covered kids' shoe boxes to collect letters in (yeeeeeees, we were using "snail mail" - noooooo, there was no internet yet!), made trinket boxes and pencil holders (yeeeeeeeeees, we were still able to handwrite back then!). Whoa - what a trip back down memory lane. Seems like a century ago. Oh, hang on - it actually is...

Anyway - I found her a shoe box (of which I currently have a whole stack - they are waiting to be used for parcels to my friends back home) and suggested we cover it with some blue gingham sticky cover which I had picked up for a couple of Euro a while ago in discount supermarket Lidl. Luckily blue is her favourite colour and she agreed to it but wanted it more unique - so we made a nice collage of pictures for the box and only used the gingham for the lid.

At this point I am an expert in using sticky cover stuff - I think I covered 23 schoolbooks for my kids last week *sighs*. Over the years I have found a technique that works best for me when covering books etc. without getting air bubbles and creases into the plastic. What you really, really need is a soft cloth with which you continually smooth down the sticky cover. Don't worry if you notice a crease - you can pull the sticky cover off again as it only sets after a while.

While I covered the lid, I set daughter up with a stack of my interior design magazines (*sighs* - yes, one of my expensive weaknesses...) and glossies to cut out images she liked. I also ripped out some big blue ads for the background.

Once we had collected a number of images, I stuck the background pics onto the box, using a pritt stick. Then I cut out smaller pics and placed them on top of the blue background.

When everything was to her liking I covered the box with clear sticky cover to make it more durable. I loved that part best - because it meant I was finally able to use up all those cut-offs that were left over from the book-covering last week. (The sticky cover is so bloody expensive, I hate it when 10 x 40cm strips of it are left over...)

The daughter was happy with the outcome - and wonderful mother that I am, I am happy when daughter is happy... *winks*. I should really make a few more of these boxes - there is always stuff lying around that would benefit from a little organising.


I actually covered a few boxes when we were doing up our bedroom a couple of years ago and I wanted my work station to tie in with the decor of the bedroom. Back then I used Laura Ashley wallpaper frieze (or whatever you call that small strip you paste at dado height) which I had picked up in their bargain bin for € 2.50 apiece. It was just the right width to cover shoe boxes, magazine holders and folder backs.