How to Make homemade DIY Candy Boxes

Homemade gifts are great and deserve to be treasured. You can use various containers to store various sweets and other contents, and people will love them.  One way to even package some gifts are in a box and have various drawings done on the service.  They look great, and even when the sweets are long gone, you can use this to store various other timeless items.  Decoupage is a great sort of thing, and while it is a French word that does mean cut out, it means in this case creating a surface with various other things applied to it.

Any sort of craft can use inexpensive boxes, which is why these homemade candy boxes are great for anyone. To start, you can go to a craft store that gives you inexpensive boxes of lightweight wood or heavy cardboard that fit your needs.  Decoupage is adaptable to any container really, even metal.  You can create various illustrations on it, or any others of artwork, including pictures you get from magazines, catalogs, various cards, even photographs and swatches of fabric. Literally, anything can be applied to this, and if you work with this, you’ll start to discover new sorts of materials that can be applied to this.  You can use black and white illustrations as well and color them with colored pencils as well.

It is easier to come up with a pleasing design to a decoupage when the background color is white, off-white, or even a light shade that doesn’t make the design an exact thing.  You can use gesso onto this to create a good surface for acrylic paint.  You should also put on a decoupage finish that adheres the design to the surface. The nice thing is about this is that all of this is soluble in water, which makes cleanup a breeze. You can even age the boxes to make them compatible with the wooden design, and you can even use this to antique a box. If you are going to antique something though, it is best to use a pale, muted background.

You can position the cutouts to overlap one another on the box so that you can wrap it around, but in essence, the design is up to you. With decoupage, you could decorate all of this, or a part of it. Some people like to decoupage the top of the box, and then the bottom separately with related images.  You could even paint the box a different color on the top and then the bottom, or even the inside one color, the bottom a contrasting color.  You can put some felt on the bottom of it, line it with fabric that is satiny, or even put a butterfly that is on the inside to create almost a jewel to this.

With decoupage, it is actually a type of action that does involve a lot of time of creating an image because you have to wait for a coat of gesso to dry each time you use it.  You can work on several boxes in the meantime at once.  Once you get the decoupage materials, you can use them to create additional boxes, and you can use these for various holidays. The best part about this is that the cost of this is nearly nothing, so you won’t have to spend a whole lot. 

The process is simple, in that you paint the edge of the gesso, let it sit untouched for 20 minutes, and then sand it with sandpaper to a small degree to get rid of any of the residue and roughness.  Once the box is completely dry, you can paint the outside with acrylic paint, and then let it seal.  You can then put on an antiquing finish to this with a damp sponge if you want, wiping off the residue with a paper towel or rage. It’s important to know that the less you take off, the darker the final color.

Once you’re ready, you can then get the illustrations ready. If the painting is a drawing, you can color it with pencils or crayons if you want.  This is a tedious step, but you can work at this to create a good appearance of the box, so do give it time.  You can create various images, color them, and make them look good before you put it on the box.

You can then use a finish to put the design onto the box.  You can put the design on the box, holding onto the bottom half of the box until it holds.  You can hold it, and if there is any that squirts out, you can then smooth it out.  You can repeat these steps with the bottom half of the box.  If your design somehow overlaps both parts of the box, you can leave a part unglued, and when it’s dried out, you cut that with a razor blade, and then glue it down the edges with more finish. Once that’s done, you can then add more finish to this, and once it’s dried, you can then have a fully decoupage box.

You can do the inside and bottom of the box at this point.  The best way to do this is to paint the acrylic over the gesso and then seal, but it is your choice if you want to put anything in there. Once it’s dried, the box is yours to choose from, and you’ll then be able to have a nice, pretty box that works for you.

With a decoupage box, you’ll be able to create a box that works well, is pretty, and one that is perfect for you. Decoupage is a great art form, and these little candy tins can really make a big difference the next time you’re toting some great things around. This handy little DIY project is both simple and fun, and with this, you’re able to see the power of decoupage for yourself, and for others as well.