Repurpose a Shoebox Into a Keepsake Card Holder for Mother's Day

I've saved all of my Mother's Day cards since becoming a mother thirty seven years ago and I have quite a collection.  But unfortunately, I place them in a drawer that's become cluttered with other stuff.  So the crafter in me needed to make something adorable to hold my cards.

A shoebox can easily be repurposed to hold cards, or letters, photos, and other special items that we hold dear. The possibilities are almost unlimited on how to repurpose and decorate them. 

For this look, begin by finding a shoebox big enough to hold different size cards you want to keep.  I had an idea to decoupage a shoebox with paper doilies and  pretty flowers from paper napkins, but somehow it didn't exactly turn out how I hoped.  In fact, I call this my craft fail. It just doesn't look pretty and aged like I thought it would.  But I think my idea is still great .  .  .  to repurpose a shoebox to store my cherished Mother's Day cards.

Once you have your shoe box, cut out the  border from doilies,  adjusting the size to fit the top by cutting, and then decoupage onto the box top .  .  .

 gently smoothing out the border using the back of a plastic spoon or cling wrap.

Next, cut out decorative borders from round doilies and decoupage onto the corners of the top .  .  .

and decoupage a round cut out doily border to the center.

Once all the doilies are dry, cut off the excess corner edges. 

To age the look of the box, since the majority of the box was black, it was easier to paint the entire box black and then rub excess off with a soft cloth. In hindsight, I think this was the beginning of my mistake. Perhaps I should have used a lighter color for this.

 Anyway, it started to look messy and then, I applied a silver rub and metallic plum acrylic paint over that. Again, trying to get an aged look with plum accents. Continuing on, despite how this was looking .  .  .

I cut out flowers from paper napkins and then separated the plain ply layers from the flowers .  .  .

before adding them to the top using Mod Podge.

Next, I added a bit more metallic plum acrylic paint to the top and sides .  .  .

and glued on metal feet for a lovely antique look!

  I think this looks a whole lot better!

 And lovely enough to hold my most cherished Mother's Day cards!

What do you think? 

Thanks for stopping by

and take a little time to enjoy -

Happy Crafting!