Our Ang Pow Box Completed!!!!!!!!!!

After months of toiling over the weekends, our AP box is finally completed!!!!

Despite saying a year ago "aiya AP box simple one can liao lah just anyhow buy one will do", we sang a different tune a few months ago when we chanced upon the mini version of our cat plushie - "lets get someone to customise our AP box with the cat and rat plushies!". Haha our idea was to create an AP box with the mini versions of the cat and rat plushies we used for our ring pillow.

So the massive hunt for the rat began. We wanted to get the mini version of our rat plushie but unfortunately, TY replied our email saying they don't produce mini Cheezers (that's the name of our white rat). We tried finding toy manufacturers to produce a mini replica of our rat but the cost was too high, so we dropped the idea. Not willing to give up our idea "just like that", I started searching online, and after a week, hola! I managed to find a rat finger puppet that looked almost alike to our original Cheezer!! To make sure it is the one and only one, I browsed through another 78 pages of soft toys on the same website. Yes, it is the only one!!!! Wahahahahahhaa so we had it shipped over from the States!

We started finding suppliers to customise an AP box with our mini soft toys but the cost was simply not worth it. Imagine charging more than $30 just to dress up our soft toys?? In the end, we decided to DIY, adding on yet another DIY item on our to-do list!

For those who are interested to DIY your own AP boxes, here is a brief account of each step of the process. It ain't that difficult, just tedious. LOL

Materials: Soft toys, A4 copier box, wrapping paper, name cushions, lace, chain of crystals, beads, rose buds, white glue, scissors, pen knife/cutter...etc

Vendors: theweddingthoughts.com, Mdm Yik aka Mrs Low my mum, Melvin & Phebe

1) Wrap up the ugly A4 copier paper box with 3 sheets of silvery-white wrapping paper. Take note that double-sided tape should secure the edges fully without any gaps in between so as to minimise possible tearing. Decide on the size of the hole on the cover, measure equal dimensions from the sides, make markings and cut out the shape with a cutter.

Wrap the cover of the box with the wrapping paper. Draw a divider line where the hole is.

Make a slit and fold it upwards so that it wraps up the ugly edges of the hole.

This is what you should see:

Use double-sided tape to secure the "flaps" to the underside of the box.

Tada!

Wrap up done!

2) Bought lace, a mini top hat and small rose buds and together with the soft toys, we passed them to Mdm Yik - this kind of sewing is too chim for me, haha!

Before:

After: Version 1

A bit plain, so asked Mdm Yik to add flowers with leaves for the rat to hold, and to sew the cat's left hand, errm, I mean PAW, onto the rat, just like the original pair. :) Oh, and asked her to sew tiny rose buds onto the rat's tail as well, haha!

After: Version 2

I thought the mini rat should wear a similar necklace like the original one, so we bought beads and I chained them together to form a necklace!

After: Version 3

To view the original plushies, read "A Special Ring Pillow" under June 2008.

3) We wanted to have our names sewn onto mini heart cushions but as both of us are not good at sewing, we outsoured the job to theweddingthoughts.com. Mdm Yik then helped us to sew the cushions onto the box.

4) Finally the time to decor the rest of the box!

Here are the materials used:

Wrap the lace around the border of the cover.

Paste flower buds around the border on top of the lace.

Finally, paste the chain of crystals all around the border of the box just below the cover as well as around the hole on the cover. Stick 3 white rosettes on the top right corner.

Tada! COMPLETED!!!

Total cost: About $100