Before and After

My projects this week are have to do with upcycling things I find in thrift stores. I even made it a point to buy things NOT over a dollar!

You can find these boxes easily at your local swap meet store and simply follow these instructions to make them all beautiful vintage looking piece.

Step 1: Sandpaper your piece so that any wood sticking out or any funky edges smooth out.

Try peeling off any images on the box. Make sure since it's from a thrift store that you then clean up any germs or leftover sandpaper with an antibacterial wipe.

I found a great find at the thrift store too: Alice in Wonderland! You can pick up any classic novel at your thrift store to do this project, look for ones with illustrations still in them especially.

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Rip out the pages for a cool affect and use a brown stamp ink pad or Holtz's distress ink to age the edge of the ripped pages.

Color in the illustration if you would like with pencils.

Modge Podge the top of the jewelry box and start to put the papers on top smoothing the edges down for no wrinkles.

After a little drying add modge podge to the top of the of the jewelry box as well....we are decoupaging y'all!

For extra effects I stamped a bee on the bottom of the lid.

I puff painted around the edges of the box and die cut a fleur de lis for the bottom of the box. Make sure to decoupage the bottom and top of all your paper prodcuts to keep them in place and looking shiny and good.

I even added the authors name to the bottom right of the box.

I hope you enjoyed my little tutorial. There are more to come of course. Keep your eye out for fun finds in the thrift stores that you can transform into little treasures!

Now I'm going to go watch millionare matchmaker! haha