More is More

Happy Black Friday!  Are you heading early for all the crazy sales? 

We drove by Best Buy at noon on Thanksgiving and there were already several tents set up out front.  That’s just insane!  Not being a morning person and hating crazy crowds I’ll be skipping all that excitement, but more power to you if you’ve got the fortitude!  LOL!  I’m thrilled to participate today in the Taylored Expressions Black Friday Blog Hop.  Taylor challenged us to decorate one of her awesome Perfect Package Card Boxes for a Christmas gift.  I truly LOVE these boxes and jumped at the chance to play with them again.

In the past I’ve used them for sets of hand made cards and I’ve always gone the quick and easy route for decorating the box.  These boxes are super easy to decorate with a little patterned paper and ribbon.  This time I wanted to just PLAY!  Do you ever want to just get supplies out and play with them, not worrying about how a project will turn out?  Well that’s what I did here.  I knew I had another box as a back up that I could simply cover with patterned paper if my project went horribly wrong.  LOL!

I definitely ran into some hiccups along the way, but I just kept going and it all worked out in the end.  In fact I’m thrilled with how it turned out – probably because I had so much fun in the process.

I started by laying the box out flat (I LOVE the way these boxes store flat so I can keep several on hand without taking up a ton of room!) and spraying it with Cherry Maya Mist.  I wasn’t sure if the finish of the box would take the Maya Mist and it sort of didn’t.  Guess I should have used gesso first, but I didn’t have any and honestly I’ve never used it before.  No worries, I just patted it down with a paper towel to remove the pooled up Mist.  Hmmmm…that started to create a cool textured look.  I let that dry for awhile and then came back with Gold Metallic Maya Mist and repeated the paper towel blotting.  I added a little more Cherry mist and more blotting.  I felt like a kid making mud pies.  Eventually I decided that the Mist might NEVER completely dry on the box, but again no worries.  I pulled out my Shimmer Mod Podge which had been purchased sometime back on a whim and never opened.  I figured Mod Podge could seal  just about anything, so I went to work with it on the Perfect Package.  Once the box was dry I had a reddish/pinkish/goldish/marbled shimmery finish.  Very fun, but I had NO IDEA where I was going to go from there. I went searching through my Christmas patterned paper and came up with 2 sheets of this vintage postcard paper by Flair that I picked up 2 or 3 years ago.  Now I had a direction!

I cut apart some of the postcard images and decopauged them on with the Shimmer Mod Podge that I so conveniently had already out.  Then I went to work with a package of Champagne Kaiser Craft Rhinestones – y’all know by now that KCRhinestones are just about my favorite things EVER!  I was debating about whether to leave it there or go forward with the snowflakes and sentiment.  I showed the box to Curt and said “Is this ok?  Can it be done here?”  To which he said “You really need something to balance out all of those rhinestones and you KNOW  More is More!”  LOL!  He was so right and so I proceeded!

The chipboard snowflakes were sprayed with the two colors of Maya Mist and allowed to dry.  (Tip:  Use the metallic colors as a base coat under the solids.  I know it sounds weird, but that’s what the directions suggest and I have tried it both ways and it does look better that way.)  The snowflakes were then attached to the box with a combination of glue dots and mini glue dots and then I added KC Rhinestones in Champagne and Lippy Red (love Lippy Red – kind of a pinkish/faded red tone.)  The SU tag sentiment was inked with 3 colors of SU markers and stamped onto Poison Ivory shimmer cardstock and punched out.  Then I covered it with Versamark and heat embossed with Halogram ep before attaching it to the large snowflake with a glue dot.  The finishing touch was some gold ribbon from a roll in my Christmas wrapping stuff. 

I plan to make some homemade goodies for the holidays, but in the meantime I thought this peppermint bark from Costco would do nicely.  Heck maybe I don’t need to make goodies.  This stuff looks pretty darned good and  I did spend plenty of time on the box!  😉  I plan to put a little note in the bottom of the box to let the recipient know that the box will fold flat for storage by simply pulling on the ribbon tab.  If you’re not yet familiar with these boxes you should know that the flap has a magnetic closure which is super nice!

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Taylor has an incredible line up of talented ladies playing in this Blog Hop today.  I can hardly wait to see what everyone has done!  Let’s go check it out!

Alex Maldonado: https://fairyblossoms.typepad.com/
Amy Rohl: https://inkaboutme.blogspot.com/
Beate Johns: https://beate.splitcoaststampers.com/
Bev Gerard: https://savorthejourney.splitcoaststampers.com/
Charmaine Ikach: https://oodabugalley.blogspot.com/
Cindy Haffner: https://cindyhaffnerscorner.blogspot.com/
Debbie Olson: https://debbiedesigns.typepad.com/
Donna Baker: https://www.serenityinstamping.com/
Jen del Muro: https://iheart2stamp.com/
Jen Tapler: https://jentapler.blogspot.com/
Jenn Balcer: https://jbalcer.splitcoaststampers.com/
Jennifer Buck: https://thebuckstampshere.blogspot.com/
Jessica Diedrich: https://thewhimsicalbutterfly.blogspot.com/
Joan Ervin: https://stampingwithapassion.blogspot.com/
Joanne Basile: https://www.stampedbyhand.blogspot.com/
Linda Duke: https://www.lindaduke.typepad.com/
Lori Craig: https://loricraig.splitcoaststampers.com/
Rose Anne Reynolds: https://paperdelightz.blogspot.com/
Sankari Wegman: https://sunnysankari.blogspot.com/
Sharon Harnist: https://paperfections.typepad.com/
Sherry Cheever: https://sherrycheever.splitcoaststampers.com/
Taylor VanBruggen: https://www.tayloredexpressions.blogspot.com/

****Enabler Alert****

***Sale at Taylored Expressions
Now through Monday 11/30***

In honor of Black Friday and Cyber Monday (the two biggest shopping days of the year!), Taylored Expressions is offering 15% off everything in the store! Just use the promotional code TEBlackFriday upon checkout to receive the discount. You don’t want to miss up to 50% off all JustRite products, Buy 2 Get 1 Free on Tiny Twinkles, and the new TE Shirts & Aprons! Click here to go to Taylored Expressions to shop!

 Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend and happy shopping!