Funky Egg Box Bead Storage

This is another decoupage project using comics (as I have a ton of them to use up!). I thought this would be a great project for a child to make in class or with a family member as it would make a great home-made gift a relative. Maybe for a mom or gran who does beading or sewing or a dad who needs somewhere to store screws. Or of course it could be the other way round - I'm not into stereo-typing anyone!

It's a great project for teaching about up-cycling stuff we usually throw away because it uses an egg box and some cereal box cardboard.

It also teaches children about how to make bendy, flimsy cardboard into objects that act like wood by layering the material with glue.

You will need:

• An empty egg box - I used a 6 but you could use 12 or 24
• Old comics or magazine pages
• Decoupage glue
• Glue brush
• Some lightweight card
  
  Not in the picture
• Acrylic paint of your choice
• Paint brush
• Empty cereal box card
• 1 inch hole punch
• 2 inch hole punch
• Glossy varnish (you could use glossy decoupage glue from the start instead)
  

Use the lightweight card to build up the compartments of the egg box so that the beads or other small items you may sort and store won't overflow.

The egg box I used had quite shallow compartments and was very low at one end, so I needed to build it up. I just cut the card into small pieces and bent it to fit before gluing in place and holding for a few seconds.

Tear up your comic or magazine pieces and lay out where you are working. This is easier than tearing as you go because your hands are going to get very sticky. Make sure you tear pieces of different sizes and make sure you have plenty of tiny pieces. You will need these to fill in around edges.

Just glue on pieces with plenty of color and don't worry too much about the final look - you can add specific images at the end. For now, concentrate on coverage and color. Use plenty of glue. I used matte decoupage glue and then added a coat of glossy when it was all done, but you could just use glossy decoupage glue to begin with.

Why didn't I do that? Well I didn't think of it until I started writing this. Duh!

To save things getting really fiddly, I decided to paint the bottom of my egg box gold instead of using the comic pieces. True, no-one is going to really see the bottom, but I like to finish things off. You could skip this if you are not as uptight about small details as I am!

Using your one inch hole punch and an empty cereal box, make 24 cardboard circles for the feet.

Then punch out six more one inch circles and four two inch circles for the knob.

Then punch out four 1 inch circles from a comic page and one two inch circle from a comic page.

You will be sticking one foot on each corner of the box underneath to make 'feet' and a knob on top to open and close it with (these are not completely necessary but they are also for decoration).

To make the feet - take 6 of the 1 inch circles and glue them together in a stack making sure they are exactly lined up with each other. Put plenty of glue all over and then add one of the circle cut from the comic.

Repeat this three more times until you have your four feet. When glued together, the flimsy card becomes solid like lightweight wood.

To make the knob - take the four two inch circles and glue together in a stack as you did for the feet. Then add on the two inch circle you cut from the comic.

Next, take the remaining six one inch circles and glue them together in a stack and add the remaining one inch circle cut from the comic. Then glue the one inch stack to the two inch stack making sure it is centered. Finally, when everything is dry, glue the knob you have just made to the top of the bead box and hold it firmly in place for a couple of minutes. Then leave to dry.

If you want to make your bead box even stronger, add two or more coats of glossy decoupage glue.

Finally, either fill your box with beads or whatever you want to store or fill it with something nice (candy maybe!), or sewing items and give as a lovely home-made gift to someone who will treasure it! If you enjoyed this, you might like to pop over to my blog at www.anythingexcepthousework.co.uk

Thank you for reading this.