Card Box With Mini Album

Scroll Down for July Anything Goes Challenge

Well the celebration of America's Freedom has come and gone but the knowledge of the price paid for this freedom will always be with us.  I celebrated by watching fireworks and then doing my favorite past-time, crafting.  This time I want to share a project with you that isn't quite finished but is turning out to be a neat project so far. It is a box with a mini album in it. I saw the template at a boutique and bought because it seemed to be interesting, and then I took it home and started to decorate it.  I've been at it for 3 days now (off and on) and this is what I have so far.  There is more to be done and I will post the completed project later.  Should I have waited until I was finished, maybe so, but I'm tired and felt the need to share with my lovely cyber crafting friends.  There's several pictures so you it can see the different pieces of the template. The post isn't long, there's just a lot of photos. 

Before I let you see the photos let me remind you of the weekly challenge happening over at Jackson's Digital Expressions as well as a special mini-blog-hop to celebrate the release of 6 new digital images.  And of course if you haven't already, join in with my July Challenge where anything goes.

Now for my project:

First is the front of the box. I covered the entire box with papers from the Graphic 45 ABC Primer collection.
I sanded the edges and then inked all of them with walnut stain distress ink. Let me just say that this was a long process so I have a new found respect for all crafters that take time to create mini albums and other non-card crafting projects.

The second photo shows the box half-way open and the inside box top showing. To keep these two lids closed I added a magnet under a strip ruler that I fuzzy-cut from a piece of scrap paper, but I wish I had thought of doing that earlier, but oh well this is a first project so my next one will be better planned and completed. Moving on to the third photo.

In this photo the box is completely open and you can see the mini-albume tucked down inside the mini box that is hidden when the box is closed.  I thought this was the coolest part of this template.

Here we can see that the mini-album is an accordian style and it comes out of the mini-box providing a lot of decorating potential.  So far I have only covered the pieces and now for the decoration which I will share on a later post.

Now we see the open box with the mini-album totally removed.  This means you could make this a box to hold little trinkets or even chocolate and the mini-album could be a stand alone gift if you wanted it to be.  There is so many things you can do with this template to make it one of kind with all your special touches.

In the final photo we see the mini-album removed from the box and as you can see it is double-sided allowing for lots of pockets, tags, photos and journaling.  Remember I've only covered my box so ideas for decorating are forthcoming.
The box with mini-album template is by Graphic 45 and if you need a project to spend some time on and to relax your mind this is a great little project.  My box is a 5.5 x 5.5 but you can purchase the template in different sizes to fit your desire. Well thats it so I hope you enjoyed viewing my progress and if you decide to do one please share. I would love to see your creativity.

"find beauty in all things and then go create your own"