Mine at Last: DIY Card Box

Two weeks before my wedding, I considered my to-do list and then promptly cut it in half by losing pipe dream projects.  There were items that we no longer had a budget for (black and white snack table with Oreos on shots of milk and homemade whoopie pies!), items I couldn't find (perfect parents' gifts), and items that were just not that big of a priority anymore.  Our card box fell into all three categories.  I had thought I wanted something cool and antique to fit our vintage vibe, but never ran across the right piece at the right price.  I was sick of spending money on things that weren't going to last but one night.  At the end of the day, I came to the conclusion that I would make a box with items I had on hand.

I found three boxes that were roughly the same shape (which I had plenty of considering people sent a lot of gifts beforehand and I had been ordering DIY supplies like a fiend).  I grabbed the roll of wrapping paper I had used for our envelope liners and proceeded to wrap each box.  I created a whole in between the bottom and middle box so that cards could fall through to the bottom.  I thought about creating a full tutorial, but this really wasn't rocket science.  It takes a little time to figure out the best way to piece the boxes together, but it's nothing that a little packing tape and hot glue won't fix.  The box doesn't have to survive nuclear war, it just has to sit on a table and look pretty.

After gluing ribbon and pearl beading (in the dollar bin at JoAnns) around each layer, I decided to gussy it all up with leftover remnants from bouquet and boutonniere endeavors.  The decorations helped to hide the seams in my less than perfect wrapping job.  I figured the whole thing was going to be thrown out after the wedding anyways and since it was a freebie project I didn't make any big time investments here.  My Aunt ended up rescuing the decorations at the farewell brunch to re-purpose in other crafting - so my card box lives on in other crafting reinventions!

Here she is in all her glory on the gift table.  It seemed like a lot of people got my gift wrap color memo!  You can also see the table seating chart which was a clutch last minute addition from Kinko's.  I designed it in publisher and we filled in the table numbers in the 11th hour.  Special thanks to my colleague, Meg, who ran to Kinko's the morning of the wedding and to my event planner, Pavaune, who found the easel and drape.

One of the things that wedding planning (or any kind of project management for that matter) teaches you is that everything cannot be a priority.  Have you learned that lesson?  Are there any projects that you're moving to a lower priority as the wedding approaches?