Mickey Card Box

Bare with me, this is gonna be a long post!  I recently made a card box for a Mickey Mouse theme birthday party!  I had so many ideas running through my head.  I decided to make the box look like the invitation that my friend made.  

 

I thought I had it all figured it out in my head.  I wanted to make a round box and tissue paper it like old school style.  Where you wrap the tissue at the end of your pencil and glue it to look like it's "fluffy" looking.  I got everything ready for this "technique", and to sum it all up, it was a huge fail!  I had to do it a different way, but all in all I think that it came out pretty good!!

Here's a little recap/how to on how I made the box!

I found this cardboard round hat box at Ross!  This is exactly what I was looking for!  The things you find at Ross!  Sometimes there are some hidden gems there!

This first thing that I did, was take out the cord that's in the box.  Don't throw that away, you can use it for all different things.  I think that I might use it for handles on a gift bag or maybe add it to decorate a card.

After removing the cord, I have these holes, but it's okay because I am going to cover it and no one is really going to see this part.

I tried to peel off as much of the glossy paper on the box as possible, but it wasn't easy.  

Next I marked the area that I need to cut for the slot where the envelopes will go in.  As you can see, I don't measure.  I just drew it out and went for it. 

Now it's time to cut that sucker open!  I used an exacto blade, I think it would be faster to use a bigger blade, but I couldn't find mine and I wasn't cutting that large of an area.  I cut a slot for the envelope part, and 2 smaller slots on each side of the box for the ears.

Voila!

We have slots.

Next, I marked where I want the colors to go.  Since I wanted it to look like the invite, I drew a line to mark the division between the 2 colors.  

I mixed glue and water in a sour cream container that I saved.  It's good to save these little containers, especially the ones with covers.  You never know when you need to save something or use it for painting or in the case gluing.  Again I didn't measure anything out, I just added glue and thinned it out with water.  It's all trial and error.  It's not that serious, and you can always thicken it if necessary.

I had cut the tissue paper for plan A, but since we're going with plan B it's not necessary to cut the tissue.  For this project, tissue is very forgiving so ripping is actually better.

Now it's time to apply the tissue to the box.  I lightly coated the box with your glue solution, and start placing the tissue in the areas that I marked for each color.  To make sure that it's coated well, I applied another coat after I placed the tissue down.  As you can see, I used a brush for this part, I suggest you use a sponge brush if you have it.  I've been rearranging so a lot of things are misplaced.  I could only find a brush.  The difficult part about using a brush, is that the bristles tend to fall off and into you project.  I had to keep plucking bristles off of the box.  A little time consuming.

I was getting a little coat happy!  I had a lot of layers, just to work out all the kinks and try to get it as smooth as possible. 

After I finished applying all the tissue to the box, I let it sit for about 10 minutes.  In the meantime, I got a oval shaped punch and punched out 2 ovals, that I used for the buttons on Mickey's pants.  I used the technique as the tissue, applying it with the glue mixture. 

While I let the box dry some more, I moved on to making the ears.  I originally started with craft foam, but unfortunately I had to scrap that idea because I cut it too small and the foam that I had was a little too thick.  In a bind, I decided to go with balloon ears.  I cut out 2 balloons with my cricut for the ears.  I cut it out of a thin cardboard box that I had received some mail in.  

As with the rest of the box, I applied the same glue mixture and used the black tissue to make the ears.  The bottom of the balloon, is the part that I slid in the slots that I made for the ears.  I got a wooden chopstick and cut it in half and taped it to the back of the ears to give it a little more support so it can stand upright.

I know, this is a horrible picture...but this is the final product!  This type of box, can be made on any scale and with any type of box.  If you want to make it shiny, you can coat it with modge podge or even a clear coat type of varnish.  

I hope you enjoyed this little recap!