A Decorated Box with Robyn Wood

Hello! It’s Robyn Wood with you today sharing some ideas for turning a plain paper mâché box into something pretty. I’m sure it will become very useful for keeping the bits & bobs on my craft table organised.

Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue is a great glue to use for covering boxes and making mini books. It dries clear, has a neutral pH and doesn’t crinkle the paper – it has always been my go-to glue for any bookmaking project.

Helmar adhesives make this type of project very quick as the adhesive dries nice and fast so you can progress through the steps without waiting hours for things to dry.

I’ve had a paper mâché box floating around for a while, it was a useful size but not so pretty looking. Time to change that! I wanted a vintage look for my project so I gathered some papers and ephemera and got to work.

I had given the box a coat of white gesso at some stage but it isn’t a necessary step.

Move the papers around a little until you come to a rough idea of what ones will be used to cover the box and which will become embellishments.

If you aren’t very familiar with the process of covering a box, take it slow and do it stage by stage without rushing. I didn’t ‘measure’ any of my pieces but I did use pencil marks for rough sizing and trimmed the excess once glue was dry. The edges and interior of the box will be painted later.

I have torn the edges of the paper used to cover my box as I prefer the look. Much of the edges were then painted over slightly with black paint. You choose how you wish to do it – straight, cut edges also look great.

Start by gluing a strip of patterned paper around the sides of the box. My paper was only A4 size wide so I did it in two strips with a little overlap. Smear with a spatula or paint with an old brush an even layer of Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue to the reverse side of your paper and then carefully adhere to box. Smooth out any wrinkles or air bubbles with your fingers. Set aside to dry.

Covering the top of the box can be a little tricky. I started with a piece of music paper that was larger than my box lid and adhered it to the top of the box and the long sides first. Once that was carefully smoothed down, I cut diagonal slashes into my paper at the corners and tucked the paper in over the short sides to give neat corners. You could try practicing with a dry sheet of paper first to see how this might work.

Once the paper is dry, it is time to paint your box. I’ve done this step after adhering paper so I know exactly where I need to paint but you could do this step beforehand instead if you prefer.

Paint the inside of the box and lid plus the bottom of the box with black acrylic paint. Set aside to dry.

Now comes the fun bit of adhering embellishments to the covered box!

Arrange your embellishments in a pleasing fashion. You can make it quite dimensional if you like, just remember that the box lid needs to cover of the top portion of the sides. I almost made mine a little too fat as the lid is quite snug.

Adhere each piece down with Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue. Paper embellishments are adhered in the same way as described above, taking care that there are no loose edges that might lift. Small dimensional embellishments may only need a spot of Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue to stick but larger or heavier embellishments may need the application of Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive. Ensure your project is fully dry before use.

Supplies:
Helmar Professional Acid Free Glue
Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive (optional)
Printed papers and ephemera
Black acrylic paint

I hope you have enjoyed learning how this project was created and I’d love to see boxes you have created using this technique. Until next time…