by Jennifer Vanderbeek

I’m a sucker for creative packaging and tend to save the boxes that catch my fancy for later repurposing. In this case, the box my tea advent calendar came in had a built-in lid and a divider with a cool frame and I knew I was going to save the box for a project. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed perfect for a miniature puppet theater. This was not a quick project (several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation played out while I put this together) but it was fun to completely lose track of time hunched over my work table, and I regret nothing!

First, I removed the extraneous bits from the inside of the box (including cutting a doorway into the center divider), covering the rest of the walls, floors, and inside of the lid with patterned paper. Next, I decorated the chipboard furniture shapes with a coat of white acrylic, a layer of Creative Medium to seal it, and then colored over the Creative Medium with Memento markers. The Creative Medium gives a nice, smooth surface to color on that will not damage or dry out the marker tips the way coloring directly on acrylic paint sometimes does.

Once the furniture was dry, I glued them to the interior walls of the box except for the table. That I glued to a piece of cardstock, placing the feet along the fold, and covered the new base with a matching piece of patterned paper so that it would blend in better with the floor.

I stamped the “puppets” and a bunch of flowers with Memento Elderberry ink and colored them in with Memento markers before fussy cutting. The flowers are glued along the bottom lip of the box and the figures are glued to the bamboo skewers to make play easier. To get the girls into their environment, flaps were cut and folded up from the top of the playset on either side of the dividing wall. Finally, to bring the idea of a puppet theater home a bit more (or maybe they just have really big picture windows), I used the curtains and swags from the stage die to decorate the lip or frame around the box and used the same paper to line the access hatches along the top.

Supplies

Imagine

• Creative Medium – Clear
• Memento Markers – Elderberry, New Sprout, Lulu Lavender, Cottage Ivy, Angel Pink, Dandelion, Gray Flannel, Lipstick Pink, London Fog, Rich Cocoa, Desert Sand
• Memento Inkpad – Elderberry

Other

• Box
• White acrylic paint
• Paint brush
• Julie Nutting for Prima – Blush Patterned Paper Pad, Chipboard Pieces, Holiday Bliss stamp set, Make Kindness Happen stamp set
• My Favorite Things – DieNamics Take the Stage die
• Acrylic blocks
• Adhesive
• Sizzix – Big Shot Plus
• Scissors
• Skewers

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