Wood Craft Book Box Ideas Part 1

Decorating wood craft boxes is an easy way to personalize gifts for others and storage items for yourself.  I love the boxes that look like books.  My husband decorated a few of his own to store sundries and inspired me to create my own.  I thought I would share some of our creations.  Since this would be photo heavy, I'm creating three different posts.  This is just to give you a few ideas and get you thinking about how you'd like to create your own.

We bought our boxes at Michael's.  You may also be able to find these or some variation at craft stores or online.

First up is my creation.  I wanted a cottage theme and I found these prints in my scrap collection.  I sanded the box a bit and then painted a base coat and antiqued it.

I layered three pieces of paper on each side.  I had scrapbook paper with a stone background which I used for my base piece.  The glue I used throughout was Mod Podge.  I then used a smaller piece of black scrapbook paper to showcase the prints.  After all three pieces were glued down, I sealed the box with Mod Podge.

I did the same painting and sealing technique on the interior.  There are tiny magnets that seem to be working well so far.

The antiquing really took nicely on the ridged areas.  I used antiquing fluid I had left from the days I used to do ceramics but you could easily water down some craft paint, paint it on and quickly rub it off with a sponge or paper towel to create the same effect.

This was a quick and frugal craft.  You could easily make it more frilly or more minimalist.  I left the interior as it but in the next couple of posts I'll show you how my husband altered it to create compartments.  See part two here and part three here.