Shabby Chic Box for Stash Storage

Last year, my wonderful friend Jo (who is a talented whiz at inky, creative, & beautiful crafting - just check out her blog here and see her lovely creations), handed over a surprise present for me. She'd already gessoed it, ready for me to put to good use. Well, as is not unusual (ooh is that a litotes? A grammatical style as favoured by our ex prime minister John Major?), it has sat on a shelf in my craft room since then, gathering dust, awaiting some attention. So finally this week, I've gotten around to decorating it.

You can see from the photo above, the holes in the roof where once there used to be string threaded through, before I took a pair of scissors to it. The roof is detachable and therefore makes an ideal box for storing stash.

Well, the first step, after removing the string,was to detach the bottom tray. I then papered over the whole box. I turned the tray upside down, papered over that too and then reattached it to the box. I threw a variety of embellishments at it, including wooden floral pieces (another gift from Jo) and handmade burlap spiral flowers. The result is this...

It's now sitting on my shelf, crammed full of the fabric flowers I've been messing around with making whilst sat in front of the TV in the evenings, catching up on films. One day, I'll have a big spring clean of my craft room, smarten it up and then perhaps I'll take a photo, complete with the box in situ. It feels more like a job to do over Winter though, when I hibernate and rarely leave the house lol. It often takes a back seat during the Summer months when I prefer to go gadding about outdoors as often as I can. In fact, when I've finished up here, I'm off for a short stroll by the river, for some fresh air and exercise. Hope everyone out there in blog world is also having a relaxing, creative weekend. Px