Green Project Time - Upcycled Tea Box project

This project is for the Boxing Clever challenge at the wonderful Artful Times blog.

Sometimes I drink really nice tea. Not always.

Sometimes  I craft with acid free paper, or actual vintage ephemera, or artist-grade pigments.

Sometimes I go for the dollar bin at Michael's.

Sometimes I just drink Lipton.

Lipton comes in a box shape that made me halt throwing it out in the trash.  I've been wanting to have prettier storage systems in my personal space lately. Hm.  Well, what could I do to make some treasure from trash?

I started by covering the box with gesso, then painting with Martha Stewart paint in Pond, Pond mixed with white and then some Liquitex basic yellow, just some nice, thick coverage.

I used a dollar-bin background stamp with a little pigment ink to add just a hint of texture to the painted parts. See it over the green and blue parts?

Then: decoupage!

 
Nothing too fancy here - just some cheap Recollections stack stock, a pair of scissors, and an image from The Graphics Fairy paired with an image from Vintage Printables. What terrific resources those sites both are!

To finish off,  some doodling with Poscas and gel pens.  I also was reminded that gelly rolls ARE water reactive when I put on that final coat of mod podge - eek! Luckily I had sealed everything once already, so my doodle mishaps wiped off OK.  Poscas won't wipe off and Uni Signo won't wipe off, but it also won't slather on as nice as a gelly roll pen, so take your pick.

Some goodies from my old jewelry making stash - a vintage button and a retro flower bead in coordinating plastic.  Also you'll see a little ribbon.

 Now the only question is what to store in it!

Oh, and the inside....

I hope you liked my upcycled project and that it inspires some stash-bashing, some use of inexpensive materials and some fun re-use. There are SO MANY containers out there just waiting to be rescued!