A Little Birthday Fun

My daughter has a birthday party to go to tomorrow night and it just so happens that the girl is my friend's daughter, our neighbor, and also one of my theater buddies! I was trying to come up with something cool for her and decided it would be fun to have a memory box for her theater goodies (programs, pictures, pieces of costumes, etc.). I made a little visit to the local craft store and came home with some goodies.

I picked up a 12"x 12" storage box made of paper (it's sturdy cardboard and it's like those boxes you get to store pictures), some pink and orange scrapbooking paper, ModPodge, and some foam brushes. My original plan was for a wooden box but the size I wanted had ridges across the top and I needed it all to be flat. I also had wanted to paint the whole thing but I wasn't sure that would work so I decided to decoupage the top. Little did I know that painting would have been the easy out, but it still turned out pretty cool.

I tore the paper and decoupaged it in overlapping colors all over the top. When I finished I wasn't so sure I liked the effect, so I decided to paint over it which would still result in a cool textured effect.

Cool, huh? She's very into orange and pink. I only had light pink at home but I had some red and mixed it to come up with more of a hot pink effect. I simply painted the bottom. Then I started the fun part. I went online and made copies of each of the shows she's been in so far and printed them out. Then I decoupaged them onto the top of the box. As she is in various shows, she can add pictures of those to the top as well.

I think she's done pretty well so far as she's only turning 10! I am including the extra foam brushes and a new bottle of Mod Podge in the gift so she's ready for future shows. I may go back and add some orange stripes or polka dots on the bottom so she has her other color included as well. Here's the finished project so far!

I also made up a bunch of shower puffs for a friend who has 4 girls. She color codes all their stuff (toothbrushes, etc.) so I did them in each of their colors.

She loved them and I had several other people ask for some so I've got to get a few more done!