Crazy UGLY little Boxes!

Ok, so a few weeks back I was hanging with my cool/ crazy friend Lee! She's the greatest crafter, scrapbooker, and sewer I've ever known! She makes all sorts of beautiful things! To be honest she is someone I look up to, and aspire to be like "when I grow up" :*)  (I hope she doesn't mind my saying that)
We met at a crop, and she's quickly become my BFF! She gets me! She gets that I love scraping and crafting, she understands the huge love I have for my family, and she also gets how pissed off I am about the muffin top I have. We sometimes scrap together, sometimes Zumba our assets off together, and defiantly have aspiring conversations about our next attack on the crafting world!
You can feel free to check out her blog at : http://www.createalways.com/

Anyways back to the STORY! Lee had some ugly boxes she didn't want and I was ALL OVER THAT! The base color was a bright pink, and I had an IDEA! I told her that when I got done with them she would want them back! So she let me run off with them! Here's what they looked like:

Actually originally they had an ugly red twine type ribbon running down the side of the yellow paper... URG!

So anyways, NEXT I took a little trip to the store to gather some supplies to make my boxes look FABULOUS! And here's what I used:

• sanding block
• black paint
• paint sponge
• stencils
• scissors
• black/ white ribbons
• assorted rhinestones/ pearl stones
• glue gun (not pictured)

AND a great printed plastic place mat.

I started out by picking off the ugly yellow and purple flowered edging, then giving the box a light sand with my sanding box to remove any leftover glue. Then I cut pieces of that lovely place mat to fit on the inside of my windowed box, and on the 2 edges of the smaller boxes. I glued them in place with my glue gun.

Then I took my assorted ribbons, and made some simple flowers, by gluing them in loops, with my glue gun.

I then added an assortment of rhinestones/ pearl stones also with my glue gun to the center of each flower.

These lovely flowers are inspired by Prima.

Then I added some matching ribbon along the edge of the place mat (on the small boxes),

and topped it off with my lovely flowers, securing them with the glue gun.

What beautiful tiny boxes!!

Now to finsih accenting the large one.

I used my stencil and the black paint to make a pretty design.

I then added some assorted rhinestones/ pearl stones, and finished it all off with some glitter glue!

Then on the opposite corner I added my other inspired flower, trimmed with a few feathers!

Here's how the large one looks!

WOW! OH, How lovely!

Total price tally:
3 free boxes
2 stix of glue gun glue $0.50
assorted rhinestones/ pearl stones $0.50 worth
feathers $0.10
place mat $0.50
black paint  $0.25 worth
ribbon $1
stencils $1
other tools on hand
TOTAL: $ 4.85

Lovely from ugly in about 2 hours!

SO WORTH IT!!!