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Cost: $ $ $ $ $

Difficulty: • • • • •

Time: 13h00

Decorating with Christmas Cards All Year Round!
I made this for storing postcards. It was originally white, with very little printing, which helped enormously.

The place holder for the label on the front was off of a filing cabinet drawer that didn't need labeling.

The whole thing was free. The Christmas card bits were left over from when I used old Christmas cards to make ornaments. (I have a project here on CO+K on that, too.)

This project was originally posted on my blog, "Painting on the Ceiling."

Enjoy!

Posted by J. Pario from Lincoln, Nebraska, United States • Published 25th December 2013 • See J. Pario's 22 projects »

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Kimya J. favorited Mosaic Box 26 May 00:25
Jen S. favorited Mosaic Box 02 Mar 21:40
Rebecca M. favorited Mosaic Box 18 Jun 03:15
Roxanne S. favorited Mosaic Box 02 Dec 15:51
maja.suspiria favorited Mosaic Box 10 Sep 16:25
J. Pario entered her project Mosaic Box to Doxie Flip Contest 29 Apr 02:06
Sarah S. added Mosaic Box to Cheap things to try 18 Jan 21:25
Kitty favorited Mosaic Box 25 Dec 23:30
J. Pario entered her project Mosaic Box to Secret Santa 25 Dec 04:26
J. Pario published her project Mosaic Box 14 Dec 23:04

Step 1
Paint your box.

Better yet, start with a box that is already white and use paint to touch it up.

Plain old cardboard soaks up paint like thirsty roofer soaks up water, as you can see from the box on the right, which my not-picky niece decided to mosaic.
Step 2
Mix ordinary white glue and water until the mixture is thin enough to spread with an old paintbrush but not so thin that your box will get damp instead of sticky.

Cut and paste. In this case, I cut up Christmas cards left over from another project.
Step 3
TIP: Work with one color at a time.

I would alternate cutting, sorting, and gluing.
Step 4
TIP: If you don’t want to work with one color at a time, put your bits on little folded cardstock trays to move them out of the way. That way you don’t have to re-sort them by hue and size again.
Step 5
TIP: Make your pattern stand out more by using different shapes for different colors. The green stripe stands out more on this side because it is all squares amid blue triangles.
Step 6
TIP: Keep your pattern simple!

TIP: Be open to surprises. The stars on the lid were originally going to be flowers.

(I'm tipsy today, aren't I?)
Step 7
This is NOT a quickie project! It's a good set-it-aside-and-come-back-every-now-and-again project. If you want it to go much faster, use squares instead of triangles.

I was grateful that I had a place where I could leave my piles of little bits undisturbed.

I sealed the whole thing with Modge-Podge (which I ought to buy stock in), and I'm really pleased with the final results.

I hope this inspires you!