Like most brides-to-be, I've accumulated a great deal of bridal magazines and felt so guilty when I went to throw them away. So, I decided to use them somehow. I came up with the idea to make a bridal keepsake box because I've already started gathering little memories like my bridal shower invitations. Regular bridal keepsake boxes run about $50.00 and up. This one from Pottery Barn is priced at $60.00:
Instead of spending that much, I came up with my version which will cost you around $20.00 or so, depending on what you have available and what you want. Here's how I did it:
1.) I started by purchasing an oval kraft box at Michael's for $12.99 and decoupage medium for about $6.00. You can also use modpodge, and that might run you a little more.
2.) Then I collected all those bridal magazines and began to carefully cut out pictures for my box. I'm lucky my bridal magazines were not ferociously attacked by a roving beast in my house:
3.) When you cut the pictures out, try to do your best to be as detailed as possible and pick pictures/shapes that can stand alone without the background. I tried to pick words, phrases, colors, flowers and more that reminded me of my wedding. I also cut out some raised flowers from some scrapbook paper I had.
4.) Next, I took the top of my box and laid the pictures on it (don't use any glue or medium just yet), get a good idea of how you want it to look first. You can paint the box before you decoupage, but I chose not to do that.
5.) After I'd placed the pictures, I started by using a sponge brush and glued down each picture on the box top with the medium. After the medium dried, I did about 10 coats of decoupage material on top of the glued pictures. Each time I waited until the medium had dried completely before doing my next coat. Here's a close-up of the top of the box, you can see that I layered pictures on it which is completely your preference.
6.) On the last coat, I moistened my brush with water and made sure everything was completely dry before spraying the top down with mod podge sealer (do this outside). I have heard that you don't need mod podge sealer because the medium seals itself, but I had it in my house so I just did it.
7.) Next, I turned to the bottom of the box. I could have also decoupaged this part, but thought it would be cool to make it different. I started by painting the bottom a light blue with some acrylic paint I already had.
8.) Then, I decided to stencil a design on the bottom of the box. To do this, I made sure the light blue paint was completely dry. I then taped my stencil to the box. Be sure you are using stencil tape and that it's exactly where you wanted.
9.) Next, I had some extra deep blue paint from the table numbers I painted. So, I carefully blotted the paint on the stencil in an up/down motion with a sponge brush.
10.) After it dried, I peeled the stencil off and had a pretty tree which I also sprayed with Mod Podge sealer.
11.) Here's a few pictures of the final product! I plan to store all sorts of wedding things in here from the bouquet charm I ordered to my invitations.
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