A Wedding Card Box DIY

My girlfriend, Jamie, is getting married this coming Friday and she asked me to make her a one-of-a-kind card box. Jamie met her husband-to-be at a Christian camp that she worked for last summer. He asked her to be his girlfriend by a cross made out of birch wood there on the campgrounds. With that being said, she is wanting more of an outdoors theme to her wedding to represent the camp that she and her fiancee met. (how sweet!) I think it is going to look really great! There is going to be various real trees all over the stage and she's even having a cross made of birch wood at the front. So, while keeping the whole birch wood in mind I was trying to think of a unique card box I could make her. And what I do with all my projects is...Google it up. =) I found some really cool outdoorsie-type card boxes, but the one that Jamie and I like the best is the one below:

I started with a 11 inch round card board box that I found at Michael's Craft Store. I cut the hole in the lid for the cards first. I then started hot gluing the sheet of moss, I also bought at Michael's, onto the lid.

With the hole for the cards already cut, it made it easier to cut and glue the moss in place.

Gluing the sides was probably the trickiest part. I had to fold up the sides first to make creases and then I was able to cut to allow it to wrap around the outside of the lid.

half-way finished...

If you can find a sheet of birch bark, it's the most ideal way of making this look as real as possible. There are alternate ways of getting the "bark look". They have wood-paper, you can see the actual grain! As a last resort you could even search the web, find a large enough picture of the kind of bark you want and print it off to wrap around your circular base.

The sheet of birch bark (that my nephew had and was so gracious to let me use) wasn't big enough to wrap the whole box around...so, I decided it would be best to cut the exact pieces that we would need to wrap the box completely and then hot glue those pieces to the box. We only needed 3 approximately 11 inch long pieces. Birch bark is really easy to cut with regular household scissors.

The gluing went pretty smoothly...I did use my husband's help just to hold everything in place while I hot glued away!! =)

PS. I used a wood-burner to "carve" the initials and heart into the birch bark =) love it!!

My husband has this really cool old hand-drill...that I believe has made it's way into my favorite tools list. It made "drilling" these holes through the bark and the cardboard box a lot easier! I don't think he'll be getting this tool back! =)

With some twine laced through the holes, it completed the look I was going for! I'm really thrilled with how it turned out! 

I cannot wait to give this to Jamie!! I really think she is going to LOVE it as much as I do!

Let me know what you think! Did you make a card box for your friend's wedding? Tell me what you did...