Treasure Chests

Now that it is almost a month after Christmas I guess I should do my final Christmas post.  So my oldest has always loved to keep treasures.  She finds shoe boxes to use, but alas they never last long.  She has passed her love for keeping treasures to her younger sister.  So with two of them it seems I can't keep enough shoe boxes on hand.  So I decided to get them a real treasure box for Christmas.  I wasn't planning on making one at first, but I never found one to buy that I liked or was willing to pay that much for.  So I ended up making them.  Here is how they turned out.
Here is the first one I made-

 And the side/back view

 And here is the 2nd one I made:

Didn't they turn out super cute! 
They were really easy to do too.  I bought the wood boxes from Jo-Ann's. Then I went to home depot to buy paint. (If you don't know this secret you can buy sample size paints for $3.  You get more paint for you buck and more variety.)  The color I bought was called whimsical white.  I love it! Depending on the lighting around us it can look lavender, pink or white.   At first as I was painting I tried to avoid the gold details, but that became to hard for me.  So I just painted then I took q-tips and rubbing alcohol and cleaned up the gold details.
After letting it dry I used modge podge and cute paper to really bring it to life.  I bought one of those small stacks of paper so I could have a large variety but not spend to much.  I measured the sizes I needed and got to cutting and modge podging.
I did both of them different and I was pleased with how they came out, but I wanted their names on them.  I don't have any fancy cutters to cut out and apply cute letters.  I don't have cute hand writing or a steady enough hand to write their names on and I couldn't find any sticker letters I liked.  So I had to turn to my mom for help.  She has beautiful hand writing.  So I brought them to her and she pulled out a fancy schmancy gold pen.  I then told her I was having a hard time deciding which one to give to which child because I had a definite favorite box.  She smiled grabbed the boxes, wrote the names on and then asked me which one was my favorite box.  I love how understanding my mom is:)
Well there they are.  My girls LOVE them.  And it is a miracle I was able to keep the whole project hidden from them.