Auction Item for Friend's School

I picked up a few recipe boxes from Michael's after Christmas -- they were $1, so I couldn't resist!  Then my friend asked me to donate an auction item for their school's fundraiser.  And I thought, how perfect to use one of the boxes!  My orginal idea was to spray paint the boxes and start from scratch.  But looking at the colors more carefully, I thought, "No, those colors look like Pear and Tulip."  Well the pear is a really good match.  Tulip is close enough for government's work.  And I thought no one would go up to the box with a color swatch, so I would be good to go.  Besides, I wanted to incorporate blue so the tulip should work.

The next problem was removing the Christmas out of the box.  There was a reindeer and the words "Holiday Recipes" printed on the top.  That's okay, I'll just spray paint the top.  That was my next plan until I opened the box and saw that the inside has the same red with white polka dot pattern.  So much for spray painting!

The top was covered with the back of Silouhette background paper.  And then I was going to use Wishes to create a card top.  Well, I couldn't get inspired, until I thought of the flower!  That would be perfect!  The flower and the leaves could be the top.  I pulled out Sky reinker and added to some water.  I then soaked the flower in the blue water for about an hour.  What I learned was that there wasn't enough re-inker in the water or that the color sky is too light for dying paper (you could barely tell that there was any color on the flower).  That was easy to remedy with a sponge dauber and ink.  I used Crystal blue and then went back in with Indian Corn Blue to make some highlights.  For the leaves, I cut Pear cardstock in the shape of leaves.  I then used a stylus to emboss the veins, which I sanded, and then added some pear ink to darken some of the spots.  Last but not least was the button for the middle of the flower.  After I glued my flower on the top (which should have been facing the other way -- I had the box backwards), it was missing something.  That's when I went in with the glitter glue and added the dots.

Next was the ribbon.  I had some extra ribbon (that we no longer are selling as of February 1, 2011) and thought, "Okay, how about using this?!"  So I pulled the center white floss to scrunch the ribbon (it's Sweet Leaf, by the way).  I used Liquid Glass to adhere it to the box.

Now for the front.  Looking from the front, the box still said "HOLIDAYS" to me.  That's when I thought about putting "CARDS" on the front.  It would bring in the blues that I wanted and would break up the red and green.  Friendship alphabet Large fit the bill.  I stamped the letters in Crystal Blue and then sponged them with Indian Corn Blue, cut them out and adhered them to the front (well I thought it was the front.  I went to open the box and found I had adhered my word to the back of the box -- which is when I discovered that my flower was on backwards).  Once I removed the word, I put it on the front!  And then added the flower because something was missing and I was able to tie the flower into the front from the top.

Whew!  Last was the inside dividers.  The box came with dividers but they said "Holiday Recipes" and had the reindeer again -- that wouldn't work.  To keep with the floral motif, I randomly stamped flowers on some cut white cardstock.  I did use the dividers for the upper tabs.  I punched those out of the existing cards.  I made a divider for "Happy Birthday," "Friendship," and "Thank You."  The Friendship tab has 15 cards while the other two have 5 each.

Okay, I'm done.  :)