A Different Side of Crafting

For many months our crafting focus has been on Crafts for a Cause, in which residents create items to donate to different nonprofit organizations within the community. To change things up a little, we've decided to start crafting items for the residents to either take home or give away as gifts. For our first venture, we created mod podge memory boxes that the residents can use to sort photos they have, store keepsakes, or give to a friend or family member as a gift.

They started out with a plain cardboard memory box. They were then able to choose different patterned paper they wanted to decorate their box with. After the paper gets trimmed to size, it's time to get dirty! The residents dipped their sponge brushes in the homemade mod podge mix (2 parts Elmer's glue, 1 part water) and brushed away! In order to get the desired effect, the box is first coated with the glue, then the paper laid down on the box, and finally the paper is coated with another layer of glue, saturating the paper and getting it to really stick!

The only modification we would have made, was using thinner paper! We used thick scrap booking paper, which due to its own stiffness did not conform to the shape of the box well. Next time, we'll have a better change of a seamless mod podge box.

Have you ever mod podge'd anything? It's a great way to customize trinket boxes, cups, storage bins, jars, bottles, folders or even binders!