Housewarming Gift Box

Welcome your new neighbors with a Housewarming Gift Box from Melony Bradley. Nothing says hello quite like recycled gifts. Crafts like this one show you care. Simple recycle corrugated cardboard and use it to construct a miniature house that you can paint.


 

Materials:

• Jacqaurd's Neopaque paint
• Neopaque paints
• Recycled corrugated cardboard
• Wool felt
• Beads
• Wire nippers
• 20 gauge beading wire
• Vintage book pages or patterned paper

Instructions:

1. I used Jacqaurd's Neopaque paint to paint my houses white. But with the array of colors the paint is available in, you can choose from so many other colors.
   
   
    
2. I like Neopaque paints because they are designed to cover dark backgrounds with light application. Neopaque paints brush on smoothly and remain soft and flexible when dry.
   
   
    
3. Use recycled corrugated cardboard for the features of the house as well including doors, little flower pots, a chimney, you name it.
   
   
   
   
    
4. For the flower pots, create little flowers cut from wool felt and centered with beads. First use wire nippers to cut off 3" of 20 gauge beading wire. Then insert one end of the wire into the center of the wire. Thread the wire onto the the wire and create a loop to secure with chain nose pliers.
   
   
    
5. Insert your flowers into your cardboard pot. I created a pot and a lid from the recycled cardboard but didn't expose the corrugated layer to create some additional texture.
   
   
    
6. Paint the door and pots a color of your choosing, I chose black and then dry brushed with white Neopaque.
   
   
    
7. For the windows, decide how large and where you would like them to go on your house, then use a square or rectangular template to cut from the box onto traced lines on the front of the house.
    
8. Back the windows with some recycled vintage book pages and some patterned paper for curtains.
    
9. Stamp a sentiment such as "Welcome to your new home" or "From our house to yours" on white card stock, cut out and glue to the roof.
    
10. Finally I added a few more small touches, including this tiny bunting created from the leftover scraps from a previous project created from Lumiere.