Coming Soon to a Mailbox Near You!

I love vintage Halloween! I have had the idea for these boxes ever since I saw one from Bethany Lowe- I think. This year Kristine McKay did one on her site and I felt like it was an omen.

Now, shopping for supplies in my city can sometimes be challenging and I knew this project would give me a run for my money because it required paper mache boxes. The original (and Kristine McCay's) both used larger, flatter round boxes. After searching everywhere in Ocala-and we have a HL, JoAnns & Michaels- I could not find 6 of the size box I wanted. In fact, pickings were mighty slim! A lot of the paper mache boxes are only available now in nesting sets-at about $20-$25 a set! Hardly an inexpensive little craft project. But, I have done sooooo much shopping in these stores that I seem to have an innate sense of scoping out things. Kind of like the truffle sniffing pigs. After I found the paper mache aisle in JoAnns-where they did not have what I needed- something told me to persevere! I went up and down every aisle and there, way in the back of my store, I found some bins that not only had 6 boxes, but at only $1 to boot!
And, I actually like this shape and size so much better!

I headed to the Dollar Tree for the crows-although you have to look very carefully to find even 6 that have eyeballs where they belong not to mention feathers, black chests or beaks facing front-but, I digress! I also bought a pumpkin and a cat decoration wrapped in tinsel. They were the ugliest things I have ever seen and I kept wanting to tell everyone in the store that I wasn't buying them to decorate my house but for the tinsel. You see, when you disassemble them, you get just the right size tinsel for this project. That bit of info came to me via Kristine McKay's site and I am ever so thankful or I may have used my much too expensive stuff from Bethany Lowe-trying to save that for very special things as it is obscenely over priced!

I actually had everything else needed:Halloween cardstock, candleholders (still from my stock of many, many, many bought for daughter #1's wedding), paint, glitter and download from Kristine McKay's website for the crown and "Nevermore" sign.

This was a fairly easy but very time consuming project. Since I love crafting, I was in my glory. I painted the top and bottoms of the boxes, covered the middle with cardstock, twisted together and hot glued on the tinsel, made holes in the lid and attached the crow, printed, cut out and glittered the crown and sign before gluing them on and painted, glittered and attached the candle holders. They pretty much took the whole day but I lit the autumn lights and candles and kept my cup full of pumpkin spice coffee so all was right with the world. Hope everyone had a Saturday just like this. Now, I'm off to make some crustini, pour a glass of wine and get ready for tonight's Gator game Go Gators!!! Stay tuned.