Recycling a tea bag box as gift box

FemmeAuFoyer

Just finished a box of well-known brand of herbal teas. It could make a good gift box. Question is, what sort of paints can I use on it? Will normal poster paint do, or does it need something thicker?
TIA

rosieben

I cant help you there, but I'm also interested in the answer as I have been thinking of making a normal tea bag 'flip top' box into a gift container.

Sharra

I've not used tea bag boxes before, but acrylic paint is pretty good on most surfaces, it's slightly flexible so its less likely to crack with movement. You could also put a couple of layers of PVA glue on the top to protect it (it dries hard and shiny).

Graham_Devon

Surely all the chemicals and oils used in the paints goe's against the whole green thing!

savvy

How about covering it with some of that handmade paper instead? Then lining the inside with tissue paper or depending on what you're going to put it in.

kittiwoz

Poster paint won't work because of the shiny, water resistant surface. Acrylic paint might work but even that might not take properly, a teeny bit of washing-up liquid mixed in might help. As others have suggested you could paper over the box and you would have the option then of painting onto the paper if it wasn't sufficiently decorative of itself. You could also papier mache the box before painting it which would have the advantage of making it more rigid if you wanted it to be a kept thing but could create problems with closing depending on how many layers you did. Fabric could also be a good option for a decorative covering if you wanted to make it a less disposable seeming object and could be easily decorated with embroidery, fabric paint, buttons, trimmings etc before attaching to the the box (for which I would suggest contact adhesive such as UHU).

rosieben

kittiwoz wrote: »

Fabric could also be a good option for a decorative covering if you wanted to make it a less disposable seeming object and could be easily decorated with embroidery, fabric paint, buttons, trimmings etc before attaching to the the box (for which I would suggest contact adhesive such as UHU).

That's a great idea - I may try that on one of my boxes, have some pretty gingham and floral fabric samples that match nicely. Thanks for the idea.

I like Savvys idea of hand made paper too, good job I drink a lot of tea!

Apologies for hi-jacking your thread FAF

FemmeAuFoyer

Thanks for all the great ideas! I keep as much wrapping as I can, so have loads of tissue paper I can try with. I would love to make handmade paper. Any links to start me off?

seashore321

Ever considered newspaper. I tend to keep newspapers from peoples birthdays and then use that as wrapping paper.!!

Seakay

FemmeAuFoyer wrote: »

Thanks for all the great ideas! I keep as much wrapping as I can, so have loads of tissue paper I can try with. I would love to make handmade paper. Any links to start me off?

http://hometown.aol.com/Ppreble2/paper.html

500yearvision

How about bulking your box up a bit with paper mache? You just need a bit of wallpaper paste and some torn up scraps of paper to add to what you have already. I made paper mache boxes for all my family & friends for Christmas a few years ago. It's a nice way of recycling, and you can use cut out images on a final layer for decoration (instead of acrylic paint - but I did use a final layer of acrylic varnish for protection).

I started with small blocks of wood, wrapped them in a bit of plastic, added several layers of paper mache - letting them dry out between layers, then cut the box into two parts for the box & lid before decorating.