The purpose these boxes have is to serve as a decorative place for my nieces and my daughter to store the Christmas ornaments I make for them each year. I know this isn't a gift that will excite three children under the age of two too much this year, but I hope someday they will appreciate it. Of all my holiday crafts this year, this is by far my favorite. I'm honestly pretty impressed I remembered how to decoupage since it's been years... and years.
Because these boxes needed to be shipped to a land far, far away, I didn't want them to be terribly enormous. I also wanted them to fit under the Christmas tree if the girls decided they wanted to leave them out (years down the road when they're on their own, that is). Because of their purpose, the boxes couldn't be too small, either. I plan to make lots of ornaments through the years.
Firstly, I must warn all of my readers that decoupage is no laughing matter. Quite plainly, the goopy white stuff is about as messy as it gets. Various forms of glue may be messier, but decoupage is really just another type of glue with a fancy name to make it sound important. Knowing this, I put newspaper on my work surface before doing any decoupaging (I was pretty certain my husband would frown on me decoupaging the dining room table, although given the right supplies, that could actually look pretty cool). I made sure all my supplies were close at hand, and started measuring at cutting to get ready for the pasting.
A bit about the supplies. I found two very beautiful Christmas wrapping papers at Hobby Lobby, along with the three paper mache boxes. One of the papers was a line from a well known Christmas carol printed with the melody. The other paper was a collection of vintage Christmas cards. I am currently banned from buying more Christmas paper (we have one of the larger Rubbermaid tubs nearly filled with paper), but this paper had a purpose and was allowed without comment (thankfully - I adore the music paper!), I also picked up the Mod Podge (decoupaging medium) while at Hobby Lobby. Other items were purchased at a later time.
After laying out the newspaper, the first order of business was to cut enough of the music paper to fit around the bottoms of the boxes. I tried decoupaging three different ways. For the first box, using a tiny piece of tape, I secured the paper to the box, then glued the paper down using a thin line of Sobo craft glue. I later decoupaged the entire outside of the box, but really only used the decoupage medium and not the actual technique of decoupaging.
The second box was decoupaged in the true sense of the word, but came out with many wrinkles I simply couldn't remove. I really didn't like the way it turned out so for the third box I decided to paste down the paper with a little bit of the Mod Podge on the starter edge and then not use the paste again until the opposite edge. Once secured, I then decoupaged over the box and it pretty much turned out the same as the first box.
I selected round boxes for this project, and round is not conducive to wrapping without a little creativity. The paper I picked up has these marvelous grids on the back that made it extremely easy to do the majority of this project. I took my little Scotch paper cutter (seriously, this is one of my 
favorite wrapping tools in the history of convenient tools) and cut strips about an inch wide all the way around the box, top and bottom (click the photo to enlarge). I then decoupaged each individual strip (two at a time) and pasted them to the box. On the bottom of the box, they overlapped a bit to create a circle. After I had these strips pasted down is when I decoupaged the bottom of the box.
Once all three of the bottoms were done, I started on the tops. I had to find a circle in my house large enough to act as a template. I found a Christmas platter that was a bit too large, but better than anything else I found. All of my pots and pans (even the big stock pots) were just a smidgen too small. Once the circles were traced, I spread the Mod Podge all over the top surface of the box lid. I flipped it carefully to place it roughly in the center of the paper I had laid out. I had to fight the curling (it's possible to see a bit of the curling in the photo, especially once the strips are cut), which made the process a bit of a challenge. 
The grid guidelines were the most helpful when doing the bottom of the box, but I was still able to use them a bit for this portion of the cutting. I cut the paper into fourths around the edge and then split each of those fourths in half, and so on, until I had fairly even 
strips (all eyeballed, no measuring for something like this) all the way around. Going back and forth between sections instead of trying to go around in a circle is pretty much what kept my strips close to even. Since the platter was just a bit too large for the
template, I trimmed the excess from the lid prior to decoupaging with my trusty little Exacto knife after folding the strips into place. I spread the Mod Podge on two strips at a time, folding each strip carefully over the edge of the box as I went along. It took a while, but the end result was worth it. Of course, it wound up being hidden mostly by one of the finishing touches I added later.Because baking, cleaning, and sleep are all calling my name quite loudly, I must stop here for the night. Please, stay tuned for the continuation of the decoupaged paper mache boxes. All three have been completed and all three are slightly different. There will be plenty of pictures to share. Also, don't forget to check back for pictures of the finished ornaments as well as the finished no-sew knotted fleece blankets.
