Upcycled 12 pack box

I enjoy making the boxes out of the of the 12 pack containers. It is a simple process, and when you are finished you have a 3D canvas to work with.

I decided on a depth for the box (about 4 inches) and then folded the rest of the cardboard into the box for reinforcement.

For some reason that eludes me, there were four phonebooks left on my doorstep. I like to wrap the boxes I make with paper to help glue the cardboard in place. I used the paper from the phonebooks because I had a lot to spare.

 

I cut up an old canvas with my exacto knife for the lid.

I then covered the box and lid with slick pages from an old magazine using mod-podge.

I wanted to paint on the box, and it is hard to paint on slick pages, so I painted the box and lid with gesso that I colored with some red acrylic paint.

To give the box some texture, and to lighten the color, I covered the box and lid with yellow tissue paper.

Using pastels, permanent markers and colored pencils I colored the box and lid. To start with I tried to follow the pattern from the magazine pages. I did not like how it turned out, so I covered everything I did not like with more tissue paper and gesso.  Then I just painted random shapes around the veins from the tissue paper.

I was happy with how that looked, so I sprayed box and lid with sealant. I love how this box turned out.