I bought a bunch of these and used this as a make-and-take project for a round-robin crafting event with my local club. Each person had to bring all the makings for something easy to assemble with instructions. Everyone would sit around the table and each be working on a quick and easy project until they were done and then switch out for another one when someone else finished as well.
I prepared all the boxes ahead of time with the edges painted with gesso and precut all the strips of papers (of various styles and colors) to size. It was a little more complicated for everyone to do quickly than I had anticipated. Everyone in the club did attempt to finish and if they did not, they finished at home and brought it to the next meeting for show-and-tell! No two boxes turned out the same and each one reflected the taste of the person who made it as I had provided variety of preprinted papers and coordinating alphabets.
For the detail on the top, I used precut and preprinted alphabets from a scrapbooking stack. I coated them with ultra-thick embossing powder and while still hot used a scrollwork stamp to press a design into them, leaving the stamp in place until everything cooled. I only use actual rubber stamps for that kind of technique (not vinyl as I am not sure it can take the heat without melting the stamp itself). Once cool, you can easily pull the letter off. I used some Vintage Photo Distress Ink to make the embossed design show up a little more. The embossing powder will resist the ink which will only be taken up on the bare areas of paper exposed by the scrollwork design. Decorations are brads and paper flowers. Letters are mounted on pop dots on another piece of preprinted paper rectangle trimmed at each corner with a punch over an ivory textured paper.
It has held up quite well over the years. The gesso at the edges has chipped slightly here and there, but I feel that gives the whole thing a well-loved look that adds character.
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