I signed up to participate in Michele's Hat Box swap, here's what I made for my partner:
I started with a brown paper heart box from Hobby Lobby, I then covered it with dictionary paper (even though you can't tell on the top). I had a hard time figuring out how to decorate it after that. Finally, I decided to use a doily (because my partner likes doilies), but I was thinking it needed a way to separate it from the background. A couple weeks ago, I bought a gallon size ziploc bag filled with seam binding, so I picked three colors that went together and glued them onto the top, it's actually gray, pink and blue, the gray looks kinda green. I had the hardest time getting the blue to stay down, as it was a lot more crisp than the other two, and you could definitely see the creases from being wrapped around a card. And then I had an even harder time figuring out what to put on the top (especially after seeing how cool Michele's was). I have a ton of these wooden roses, I keep buying them cause they're so cool, so I chose pink/purple, white and green to go with the seam binding. For the edge of the lid, I glued buttons on that I got in another swap.
For the sides of the box, I finally decided to cut out flowers from a vintage embroidered dish towel. My partner said she liked vintage things.
I also had a hard time figuring out how to package the lid of the box without squishing the roses, I finally flipped it upside down, so they nestled into the box. I hope they stayed on throughout their trip.
Monday afternoon, after I mailed the box, I realized I was supposed to add something I made in the box, I really suck at reading lately. So, I emailed my partner and said I'd get something made and mailed out to her before today (Friday). And then I fractured my tail bone on Tuesday. Needless to say, it's been hard to sit comfortably and create something, but I did make her a tag:
The tag is covered in vintage book paper, it was covering the insides of a book, the cameo I found at an antique mall, and the trim on the bottom is vintage from a garage sale. It's funny that I used the cameo, I actually picked up two of them at the antique mall and really wanted to use them on the box, but it being heart shaped, I couldn't get them to look right.
