Outside the Box

by Pat Ruge

3 Materials

$10

2 Hours

Medium

My granddaughter is getting married, next month. Although I have already presented the loving couple with a wedding gift, I know that years from now that may well be lost due to use and/or replacement. Crafter, that I am, I wanted to make a gift for each of them that they might enjoy for years to come and even consider passing on to their grandchildren. My grandson-in-law-to-be (Gus) likes to smoke cigars, so what better gift than a cigar box. And so we begin.

Just as I was about to remove the labels which left the usual sticky adhesive I ran across Shawna Bailey's post on homemade Goo Gone. Goo Gone is a petroleum based product and anyone who has used it know it has quite a odor so I was quite excited to see it uses only a cooking oil and baking soda. To test her theory, I decided to just apply a good coat of cooking oil and sprinkle on the baking soda, rub with a paper towel and voila! It works. Shawna's project: http://www.hometalk.com/diy/clean/house/homem... box is lightly sanded, wiped clean, and four wooden feet are glued to the bottom.

For texture, I wanted to add a piece of corrugated cardboard. I soaked one side of it to remove the paper and reveal the corrugation. You will see it later on the box.

I also wanted to include some keyhole molds. These molds I bought on Amazon using my Hometalk gift certificate (thank you, Hometalk). As I mentioned in another of my posts, always have a secondary mold ready to go, in case you mix up more than you need. Check out: http://www.hometalk.com/diy/decorate/rooms/st... where I describe how to mix your plaster and pour.

I will be using one of those (without the magnet) in my "Out of the Box" project.

The exterior of the box has been painted with a black gesso. This gesso is my own recipe used in "Mom Podge, the Mother of Gesso and Modeling Paste" I played around with a number of different layouts, before the E6000 comes out to nail it down. To personalize for Gus, I use the letters from the Tim Holtz Grungeboard collection. Noted here: http://www.hometalk.com/diy/paint/mom-podge-t...>

Since Gus is a cigar smoker, I intentionally left the inside untouched so as not to contaminate.

After playing around with the layout, the final product includes some Bright red and Royal Gold metallic craft paint for highlights. These paints were applied before the blings were glued on.