Recycled Shoe Box into Stencil Designed Storage

Shoe boxes are great for storage. They are small and stackable; my favorite way to organize clutter. But they aren't always pretty. So I decided to decorate some by recycling them into craft storage. When decorated, you can display them on an open shelf. 

I started with this flip lid shoe box. Perfect for some of my crafting scraps, I wanted a happy design and soothing colors. 


So I spray painted the box in this bright turquoise color. 

Then chose to use this stencil designed by Dina Wakley for The Crafter's Workshop. With my color palette in mind, the striped leaves are a great design. 

I taped the stencil to the lid of the box vertically. Using just four repeating lines of the design, I painted white, bright green, brown and white. 

Then I randomly designed the front of the box with colors and leaf direction.

After the paint dried, and I thought the box needed a bit more. Something more like a label. I intended this one to be for craft scraps labeled "Junk & Scraps".  So I used this favorite stencil. Because I wanted the leaves in front, I painted in between the leaf lines. (Next time, I'll reverse the stencil use.) 

Here is my first decorated box to get started with organizing!

  

How do you recycle or decorate your shoe boxes? 

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