Upcycled Paper Heart Box

I love quilling, but I only have a few colored quilling strips other than white. For this reason, I got the idea to make some with brown paper grocery bags!

I have tons of them so I thought it was worth giving them a try. But honestly, brown is probably my least favorite color so I didn't expect anything good from those bags...

Boy, was I wrong!
The combination of brown and white paper strips turned out beautiful! It almost looks like the old copper's color, or something similar :D

So here is a great quilling project to remind you how good upcycling is!
I'm very satisfied with the way this heart box turned out and I hope you like it enough to vote for it :)

By the way, Valentine's Day is getting closer and this heart box will be a perfect gift, don't you think? ;)

Step 1: Supplies

• piece of paper (even an already used one)
• scissors
• white glue
• slotted quilling tool
• ruler
• white and brown paper (from grocery bags)

Making strips out of grocery bags is much easier than you may think. What you have to do is using the bag as if it was a piece of paper.
To do this, cut the bottom and side of the bag to be able to open it completely and obtain a big single paper sheet.

Once you have your sheet, cut it into smaller sections to make your paper strips.

Check out my other instructable to find out how to quickly cut your own paper strips, and of course, do the same with the white paper.

By the way, I also reused already written white paper for this so the whole box is completely upcycled!

Step 2: Shape the Heart

First of all, you need to make a heart "mold" that you can use to shape your quilled heart.

You can either draw a heart on a piece of paper and cut it, or make one with the computer, print it and cut it, like I did. I made mine about 10 x 8,5 cm (3.93'' x 3.34'').

Now make many white tight coils with your quilling tool and glue them one next to the other around your heart shape (noton it!).
You need to make 3 identical hearts this way, using the same shape for all of them. When you are done, you won't need that piece of paper anymore.

Finally, make 6 more white tight coils. Glue 3 on top of each other and do the same with the other 3 to obtain 2 "columns".

Glue each column on the tips of a heart (top and bottom), leaving the other 2 hearts free. The heart with those columns will be the base of the box.

Step 3: Decorate the Hearts

It's time to start using the brown strips now!

Simply make many loose coils and S scrolls with them, and glue them to each other inside the heart base and in one other heart, as decoration. That other heart will be the cover of your box.

The coils don't need to be all the same, the more various they are, the better your hearts will look. Make some small coils and some bigger ones. You can even make different shapes if you like, this is all up to you!

If you don't know how to make loose coils and S scrolls, I recommend you to look at this instructable where I explained how to make many different coils.

Step 4: Decorate the Sides

Now place the free heart (the one you didn't decorate) on top of the heart base and glue its tips on the 2 columns. This will be the actual box.

Make more loose coils and S scrolls and use them to decorate the sides of your box, gluing them between the top and bottom hearts.

Decorating the sides can be a little trickier than decorating the flat hearts because of their curves, but it's not too difficult either. You just need some patience...take it slowly ;)

When you are done decorating the sides of the box, you can finally put anything you want in it and place the heart cover on top!
Of course you can't fill it with heavy stuff, but I believe candies are a good compromise! :D

Your beautiful upcycled heart box is done!
Can you believe it was made with what-was-going-to-be garbage? :)