Oatmeal Container & Old Hymnal Repurpose

It's time for another Junk Revision Challenge. A monthly blog hop where we transform so called "junk" into something better. I love a good repurpose don't you! This month the challenge was to come up with repurposed "GIFT WRAP and CONTAINER" ideas. Come and check out what we each came up with and you may just be inspired! ...

I love a good creative challenge... and coming up with new ways to reuse things is something that I truly love… enter the humble Oatmeal Container... oh how I love thee... let me count the ways... They are round... my favourite shape (okay they are actually cylindrical, but they have a round top), they are sturdy, and you can store things in them...

Okay, so they aren't that pretty... but they are like a blank canvas waiting to be transformed into whatever your imagination can dream up...

Enter some old hymnal books bought at a garage sale for 25 cents each. I love the aged brown patina that time has kissed them with.

Now to figure out what to do with the two things...

Since I wanted to have the song titles be readable, using Mod Podge, I began covering the top edge with cut down pieces of book pages, followed by the full pages aligned at the bottom. There were no Christmas Carols in the books per se, but I did find a song called "He Had No Place to Lay His Head"... which inspired me to go on the lookout for a nativity scene appropriate to the title...

I found THIS wonderful nativity image on Pinterest. There is a free pdf that you can download off their site which has images for wood cuttings. I fell in love with it and decided that I would attempt cutting it with my Silhouette Cameo machine.

I decided that rather than have the silhouette cut in black that I would do it in white cardstock.

The next thing to do was to carefully brush Mod Podge to the back of it and adhere it to the lower part of the container. (I forgot to turn it over so the image was flipped, but thankfully it still looked great!) To add more interest, I adhered some silver tinsel ribbon and some faux evergreen sticks to the base of the container with hot glue.

For the upper part of the container I found some wide lace trim in a lovely off white and using double sided tape adhered it so that the bottom scallop allowed for the title of the song to be seen. I wanted to keep it relatively neutral so that the creche would be the first thing that your eyes were drawn to.

For the top of the lid, another page with title was cut and Mod Podged to cover it completely. More tinsel ribbon finishes it off. To create a gift tag, I cut some holly out of silver glittered paper and used a mini frame that is used for wedding favours. I simply turned the paper with photo to the back and added a name to it.

I like the idea of the gift box also being the gift and in this case... it can even stand in as a nativity display for those who don't have one. I love how it looks and am glad that the fragile page of that song has been brought out into the light to be the backdrop for the nativity and enjoyed by whoever ends up being the recipient of the gift in this container.