Color Block a Wooden Box For Under $10
Posted by Candie (January 11, 2013 at 6:39 pm), 6 Comments
Within just a few days of getting to know Liz, we bonded over our love of crafting / DIY’ing. She had opened my eyes to a world that I barely knew existed by giving me the names of blogs that she loved and followed. Soon after, I began loving and following these same blogs and once that happened, I could never go back to the non-blog reading gal I once was! Young House Love quickly became my go-to site / new obsession. A year later, we still check on their site daily (multiple times, most days) and just can’t get enough of that cute little family and their decor style. When we heard that the power couple behind YHL was writing a book, we jumped all over that thing like white on rice. Even more exciting, they announced their book tour and we so on top of it that even the stores they were signing at nearby didn’t have them in their books for us to be able to RSVP yet. True story.
We knew that we wanted to put together a little box ‘o love for those two, Sherry and John and even more so for their spunky little girl, Clara. So, we began by making a quick trip to Michaels to grab “fun packaging material”. I had a vision of a light wooden box that I could color block. Back in October, when we held our ‘DIY a Pumpkin Challenge‘, I really fell in love with one submission by Craftbaby member, April of Illi Style.
Amazeballs, right? Needless to say, I’ve been dying to color block something…ANYthing, ever since I laid eyes on those pumpkins. And in true CB style, I figured this would be the perfect time!
Begin with a plain wooden box, some paint and painters tape
(we found our box at Michaels for just $9.99 – with a 40% off coupon – woot woot!)
Using painters tape, tape off first section and paint
After the first section has dried, tape over first section to create the line for the second section
Paint tag placeholder an accent color (if desired)
This project really made me appreciate the magic of painters tape. The clean lines it helps you achieve really do help a self proclaimed “perfectionist” out.
You can of course continue to color block with as many more sections as you’d like from here. Even though I had grabbed quite a few paint colors, there was just something so charming about that small portion of exposed wood that I made me happy with just the two paint colors. Plus, I was trying to keep the box “gender neutral” so that it was appropriate for Sherry, Clara AND John.
After we color blocked, we grabbed a plethora of fun items to throw in there.
Whats in the box?
For Clara
- Mini Elmer’s glue
- Mini Markers
- Shells from Florida
- Mini Craftbaby 2013 Bird Calendar (which you can grab here)
- Mini clothespins & some baker’s twine (perhaps to display her snazzy new calendar)
- Washi tape
- Clara beaded necklace kit for her to assemble
- Airplane /car window cling stickers to help keep her busy on trips
- Florida stickers to help her to understand where Mommy and Daddy took a trip to
So what do you think? Easy enough? I don’t even think this project took me an entire hour. I only needed one coat of paint for each section and they each only required about 15 minutes of dry time. Not too shabby of a box to store photos or knickknacks in or even to use it as a gift box like we did.
Happy colorblocking!
This is such an awesome project – perfect for housing a hostess gift!
[...] we stood in line and waited to have our books signed. We were also excited to give them our color blocked box ‘o love that we had put together. To my surprise, Sherry recognized the Craftbaby name that we had [...]
Oh boy! I am so super honored. To see my lil babies on CB is such an accomplishment. I can die a happy craft blogger now :) And the fact that you are giving it to YHL’s John & Sherry… even better. xoxo
Isn’t this so cool? Sherry seemed to really like it when Candie handed it to her! Such a talent, my friend!! xo Liz
so cute! love the raw wood left peeping through!
Didn’t Candie do an amazing job on this one? She was crazy sick with a bad cold and kept saying “I’m going to paint a box.” I didn’t really understand until I saw it – adorable. Wait til you see her Valentine’s Day project :)