DIY Memory Box

Since we've returned from our Europe adventure I've been trying to decide what to do with all of our little mementos from the trip. You know like the airport boarding passes, the tour tickets, the left over coins... all those things you normally put in a scrap book? I used to love to scrapbook, but it's a little too time consuming and creatively challenging for me these days, so when I found this pin on Pinterest, I thought it as perfect!

Here's how I completed the project and made it my own. :)

First I got my supplies - $4.99 boxes from Michael's - I bought these last week with my 50% off coupon of course

I went back to Michael's this week with some new coupons from the paper and bought my stencils and paint pens. 

I got paint samples from Lowe's in the colors I wanted. They were about $2.50 a bottle and since they match the colors of my house I can definitely use them for future projects!

I set up shop on my fire place, laying some news paper down to protect the brick. I couldn't do it anywhere else you see, because today was the first Sunday of football season! So naturally, I had to watch the games while I was working on this project. : )

After all of the boxes were painted. (Oh, hi me! Nice to see you in the reflection of the glass doors! By the way, that dated brass will one day be painted black - its a huge project so I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for it!) 

After the paint was dry I used a pencil and the stencils to outline the letters. Super helpful to use a pencil because I had to erase my lines quite a few times before I got the words centered right on the boxes. After I had them all traced I used the paint pen to fill it in. So glad I had my sister to give me the tip on the paint pens! It made this project far less messy and saved my stencils from getting yucky from paint.

I filled the boxes with our keepsakes.

And then placed them on our bookshelf! All finished! I'm actually really happy with how they turned out. They're not perfect, I mean, my letters still don't line up together even after all of the re-tracing. But I think they add a special little something to our bookcase in our family room. 

 '

Full shot of the book case. I frequently rearrange this thing because I'm never sure if I like what I have on it/how I have it on there. Hence the picture frame sitting on the couch that you can see in the bottom of the picture. I took that off to make room for the boxes! I think I'm liking the looks of the book case for now though. :)