Card carrying Bride

I thought what better way to celebrate labor day than talking about the most labor intensive project I did this weekend.

I've been meaning and meaning to make a card box. For a while I was thinking of something simple, get a cardboard box and cover it in wrapping paper. But that seemed almost too dull and boring for me (plus there was almost no chance I could cover my skin in some exotic paint color).

After seeing a post about card boxes from Nautical Wedding (who actually linked back to The Pissed off Bride, it's like phone tag with blogs and brides) that are designed to look like wedding cakes (really you should go see them they look really awesome) from that most holy of holy places etsy.com I started to get some ideas.

There was no way that I was going to pay $50 for my own little cardboard cake thing, (plus we aren't going to get that many cards) but my creative wheels started turning and Friday night we made a trip to Big Lots! where I tried to find just the right sized box (we also went to see their Halloween decorations, man people are taking forever to put them out).This is a picture of what I started with. A simple hat box covered in chickens (FYI I loathe chickens, I had to spend a summer dealing with them. They are the most disgusting and vial creatures on earth). I carved a hole into it using the steak knife (a very bad idea).

Most people would probably try turning this a nice weddingy color (like white or maybe blue) not I. Ee went black. Though most of that was because the only spray paint we have is black (from the sign).

So early on Saturday morning I would make trips in and out of our appartment attempting to spray paint this box. It was going pretty well until I ran out halfway and had to go and get some more.

After letting it all dry it was only a matter of sitting down for 4 or so hours and painting on all the pretty little flourishes that are our wedding.Since we're having the blue and green theme for the ceremony one side is painted with green vines and random blue flowers.
And for the reception, which is of course going to be as halloweeny as we can manage, a whole bunch of pumpkins on their own vines.The best part of this little project is that in the end I got a customized card box that only cost me under $10. Just kindly ignore the fact that I spent around 5 hours making it and my forearms are killing me.

If you're also trying to think of a simple but still different card box you could not be as insane as me and just spray paint a hat box your wedding colors and then glue some tulle to it.