Weddingbee Blog

Sooo, when my sister got married 4 years ago, my mom purchased a card box for her wedding. She was happy with it, and it served its purpose quite well. I mean… it’s not like it had to do a lot of heavy lifting or anything. It was a box. With a slot in the top. Um, yeah. Pretty simple. This box has since been handed down to me for my wedding (which is nice, because it’s one less thing to buy). The only problem? Well… it didn’t really fit in with what I had envisioned for our card box. I mean, like I said… it’s a card box, it’s not anything too earth-shattering, but every time I saw it, a little pirate-esque voice in my head would say “Arrrr, matey! I be yer card box for yer wedding!” Perhaps a picture of said card box would help? I’ll have to do an image search, since I’ve already started dismantling it and didn’t take pictures beforehand.

Okay… search: “treasure chest card box”. Oh! WELL! Would you lookey there? It’s the first image that shows up. Coincidence? I think not.

Source

As you can see… it’s a little bit like a wedding treasure chest.

Obviously, it’s meant to hold our wedding booty (I couldn’t resist), but I wanted something a little less… OMGIAMAWHITEWEDDINGCARDBOX. Oh, and a little something less pirate-y. So, I set off to my local crafting mecca, and brought home a few supplies to give it a makeover.

Supplies: 1 stem of hot pink peonies (severely discounted because of a coupon). 3 bottles (2 not pictured because I used them up completely) of cheapy black paint. Not even fabric paint… literally, the cheapest craft paint I could find at a whopping $1.75 per bottle. 2 cheapy foam brushes. 1 package paint brushes (ostensibly for detail work, but I didn’t use them). Also, not pictured: straight-edge razor blades for old hot glue removal, glue gun, glue sticks, and leftover ribbon from other w-related craft projects.

Ahoy, matey! I be yer card box!

I started by looking at what I could do to strip this baby down to the bare bones. I removed all the lacey-edging first.

Arrrgh, that be my decorative lace edging, matey!

Then, I used the straight-edge razor blade and chipped away at the old hot glue that was attaching the edging to the box. This was quite tedious, so I busted out a Sprite and some Real Housewives of Orange County to keep me company.

You can take my hot glue, but you can’t take away my freedom!
(uhm, nevermind, I just channeled “Braveheart”, not “Pirate.”)

Then, it was paint time. I brushed on one coat over the entire box, and let it dry overnight. Then, the following morning I put on another lighter coat just to make sure none of the super white satin was showing through in any places.

I’m startin’ to feel not like me-self!

Once it was completely dry, I used thin ribbon to cover the edges where the old lacey stuff/leftover hot glue was. I put another thicker ribbon from the middle of the card slot around the front and the back of the box, keeping it shut (I don’t want anyone tampering with our gold doubloons, yo). I finished up by drilling two holes in the top of the card box, and hot glued a peony and some foliage into each spot. Are you ready for the final product?

Pretty good, hey? It took a fair amount of time, and it’s still pretty wedding-y, but it doesn’t scream “PIRATECARDBOX!” to me anymore when I look at it. I’d say it was a success, matey.

Have you taken anything handed down to you for your wedding and made it your own?

(unless noted otherwise, all photos in this post are by moi)