I have more cereal boxes than I do common sense...

Every year I pass out baked good to friends and neighbors, and every year it's fun for me to make or embellish the container the goodies are packaged in.

This year I decided to re-work cereal boxes.


Flatten the box and cut out one of the side panels and about 2 inches of the front (or back... whatever.) I left about a half an inch on each end of the side panel. I'm no engineer, but it seems to me like it'll be just a bit more sturdy that way.



It should look like this when you're done.



Then cut off the remaing part of the panel.



It should look like this when you're done.

These have had their seams all hot glued back together.

Spray paint them whatever color you like. Make sure you get all sides, including the bottom, and the inside of the box. I found I had to do at least 2 coats to ensure that the Quaker Oatmeal Man wasn't visible anymore.

Poke a hole on each side of the box so you can make the ribbon handle. I ended up using an ice pick and a cutting board and just carefully pushing/twisting the ice pick through to make the hole.



Because my Christmas colors are black and gold this year, these are the colors I used to decorate the box.







I used my Favorite-Thing-Can't-Believe-I-Ever-Lived-Without-It (my Cricut) to cut out the shapes. These were hot-glued, taped, glitter-glued, etc. I plan to do some with lots of ribbon too.

Now I just need to get baking.