Capture Precious Memories

By: Kathleen George for Styrofoam Brand Foam

Keep your most valuable treasures in this Faux Leather Box. Not only can it hold your things but it also looks nice as a decorative piece.

Materials:

STYROFOAM Brand Products:
- Sheet, 1/2" x 12" x 18" (larger sheet can be cut to size)
Construction paper: dark green or black; brown or tan
Shoe polish: black; brown or neutral
Soft, clean rag or shoe brush
Brass upholstery tacks, 82
T-square or ruler
Utility knife with sharp blade
Low-temperature glue gun and glue sticks
White craft glue
Paintbrush, 1" stiff bristle
Small mixing bowl
Drinking glass or jar
Brown acrylic paint (optional)

Steps:

Using utility knife, cut box pieces from foam sheet as follows: two 6" x 4" sides; two 4" x 4" ends; one 6" x 5" bottom; one 6 1/4" x 5 1/2" lid.
Hot glue foam pieces to assemble box. Glue 6" x 4" sides to top of box bottom, then 4" x 4" ends wedged between sides.
Tear dark green or black construction paper into 1"-1-1/2" rectangles.
Squeeze thick white craft glue in bowl and thin with small amount of water.
Place torn paper in bowl, coating both sides.
Brush a thin coat of undiluted white craft glue on top and edges of foam lid.
Slide through fingers a piece of glue-covered construction paper, removing excess glue. Place on lid, smoothing wrinkles and eliminating bubbles. Continue, overlapping edges of paper rectangles, until top of lid is completely covered. Also cover lid edges with paper rectangles, folding excess to bottom.
Place lid on rim of glass or jar to dry.
To create leather look, apply generous amount of black shoe wax to lid with soft, clean rag or shoe brush. Let wax set; buff to a shine with soft rag or shoe brush.
Follow Steps 3-8 to cover outside of box and top edge with brown or tan construction paper rectangles. When dry, follow Step 9 to apply brown or neutral shoe wax to box and buff to a shine.
Paint interior of box brown or apply brown or tan construction paper rectangles as before to cover foam.
Insert upholstery tacks evenly spaced in box corners and edges of lid (refer to photo).