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"The Gift That Keeps On Giving"
Having reached that age where most of my friends and family are either planning on getting married or having a baby, I found the perfect opportunity to make a personalised keepsake box for one friend in particular, who welcomed a beautiful baby girl into the world.
With these magical moments marking stepping stones in all our lives, it’s only natural that we want to keep things as mementos to remind us of such occasions.
So if you’re stuck for gift ideas or want to make something unique for yourself, why not give this a go!
For this project you will need:
Empty card box
Kitchen tissue
Scissors and a craft knife
Blue tissue paper
Colour pencils
Colour card – brown, white, glossy pink
PVA glue and paint brush
All-purpose extra strong glue
Gold ribbon
Small gold bow
Small blue gems
Acrylic paint
Instructions
1. Cut your kitchen tissue into small strips.
2. Using PVA glue, glue your tissue strips around your box and leave to dry. Do this for both the base and lid of your box.
3. Cut more of your kitchen tissue roll into heart shapes ranging from small to medium sizes and glue this around the base of your box using PVA glue. Do not glue any heart shapes onto the lid of your box.
4. Next take your blue tissue paper and cut these into small strips. Then glue this around the lid of your box and leave to dry. To avoid the transparent look, glue 2-3 layers of tissue paper on to the lid of your box.
5. Take the base of your box (which should have dried up since point 3) and paint around this with pearl white acrylic paint and leave to dry.
6. Take your gold ribbon and glue this around the edge of your lid using all-purpose extra strong glue.
7. Next, take a sheet of white paper and stencil out your mermaid design.
8. Trace the outline of your design and transfer this on to some brown card. Then cut around this using a craft knife.
9. Next cut out the torso and face of your original mermaid design and stick this on top of your brown card cut out (created in step 8).
10. Then stencil the top and tail of the mermaids outfit onto some shiny/glossy paper, cut this out using your craft knife and stick this onto your mermaid cut out. Finally, colour in the torso, arms and face of the mermaid.
11. Once your mermaid is created, glue this onto the bottom right corner of the lid and add a small gold bow to the hair (securing this with all-purpose extra strong glue).
12. Next cut out more tissue strips and glue this around your 3D alphabet letter using PVA glue. Once dry, paint this with pearl white acrylic paint (so that this matches the base of the box).
13. Finally using all-purpose extra strong glue, glue this alphabet in the top left hand corner of the lid.
14. To complete the box, glue some blue gems around the box (creating the look of 3D bubbles) using superglue.
…and there you go, your baby box is now ready to be filled with lots of memories!
