Candy Box

Alright, now we have our decorated candies from the past two days, York Peppermint Patties and Hershey nuggets, they look great but they need a container.

I bought this little wooden box at Michael's for $2.00. I wasn't sure what I would use it for but I knew it would come in handy eventually. It could probably use some light sanding before you paint it but I'm lazy and skipped that part.

I used some white paint to make a nice clean background for stamping. Foam sponges work well for putting the paint on smoothly. Cover the outside of the box with white paint, paint the inside and outside edges of the handle too. As far as the inside of the box, I just painted down as far as my sponge would reach. If you have a longer brush you can paint the whole inside.

Now here was the tricky part. I had trouble stamping on the white paint. It could be for several different reasons, I think it was either that the glossy paint was slippery and so didn't take well to ink or that I didn't let it dry well enough before I started stamping. It might be a good job to really let the paint dry well and then lightly (very lightly) sand it with very fine sand paper to rough it up just a bit to hold the color. On the other hand, the stamped images on mine almost look like watercolor paints and I ended up really liking the look. Here's a close up of how the initial flower stamping turned out. I used bubblegum ink.

Try to keep to the random stamping rule as best you can on this box. You can't use a sponge underneath the wood obviously but you can press your hand on the inside of the box up against the stamp. I do not recommend large stamps when stamping without a sponge underneath. Once you've stamped one side, let it dry, then move on. Do this with all the sides, then go back and do the middles the same way.

After drying in between each set of stamps go ahead and do your leaves, these were the hardest for me, the ink just wanted to either not stick or just slide, hold the stamp very still or try the sanding method I mentioned.

Once dry you are ready to put your candy in. I think it would look great with a little pink or green tissue paper in the top but I didn't have any so I just mixed up the candies and loaded them in the box. Here's the top view.

Here's the front view, I'm so pleased with how it turned out. I'm going to be giving this as a gift to my hostess at my party in Battle Creek, Michigan on Saturday. Hope you get a chance to make one of these, imagine them as a shower gift or party favors.