December 14th- Altered Matchboxes

Matchboxes are wonderful little things, they start out life holding matches and can become keepers of special treasures.  This year I decided to make table centrepiece from matchboxes.  I added a little tree, some pretend Christmas lights, a star, some candy canes and some stickers.

First up you'll need 24 matchboxes - I recycled mine as they once held matches but you can actually buy little boxes that are exactly the same only they're all white and have no match-strike strip.  Line them up 3 boxes at a time and then lay them end-side-end-side until you make a square.  Alternate them so that 6 drawers aren't lined up (like in the picture) and glue together with glue and an ATG gun.  I adhered the box tiers with ATG gun, and then finally glued everything with my hot glue.

Create a top and bottom card, cover and glue on.  Then all I did was decorate the inside of the boxes with paper and doodling and added a Christmas flower and brad to the front.

Finally I added my little tree.  I used two chipboard stars and glued them back to back.  Then I cut up a string of little lights and individually glued them to the branches.  I added a festive ribbon to the base, sprinkled on some snow (and Stickles for sparkle) and decorated around the tree.  The little elf carrying the presents is a sticker that I put on strong plastic packaging and then cut around.

Now you can fill the drawers with all sorts of treasures for your guests to find (candy, jewels, festive quotes, Secret Santa names, chocolate etc)

There are more closeups of the tree on my blog - Paper Treewww.papertree.blogspot.com.

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