Painted scrapbook papers making boxes with the envelope maker

Ok, I have been wanting to make cards for gifts, but wanted unique papers, I also wanted to experiment with boxes made using my Envelope Punch Board (which I love) (by We R Memory Keepers.  I could use my Silhouette Cameo, but sometimes using this inexpensive tool is quicker.  I saw this great You Tube Video which explained how to easily make boxes instead of envelopes to hold several cards to make as gifts.  Easy, just find the card size, and decide how thick you want the box, 1" seems about right and you can quickly make a box for sets of cards, or a box for cards that are thick.  She used scrapbook paper that was printed on both sides, I do not have any, but thought, I could make this much more interesting if I painted the back side of the cheap 12x12 paper I bought ages ago on clearance sale at Michaels.  I have been wanting to do some anyway.  This is the pack of paper I have:

Pretty boring papers, but I am concentrating on the white backsides here:

So I quickly grabbed some old craft paint, a gift/key card and a handful of texture sheets

Then, placing the plastic canvas under the paper squirted paint onto paper and swiped paint with the gift card, then slid some of the texture plates underneath again and did it some more until I was satisfied with the look.  Paint dries very quickly because it is so thin.  One distinct advantage to this method is it is quick and easy with very little cleanup.  I do have gelli plates and love to work with them, but it is a little more work and with more things to clean up, brayer, stencils, masks,, etc.  This method gives great results in a very short time.  Since my work table was near a window, the two sheets I did dried in minutes.

Then using the You Tube video linked above proceeded to make two boxes:

Here is another couple of shots showing the side view thickness of the boxes:

I almost had looked at ordering plain white 12 x 12 cardstock to paint like this, then to use in my Cameo, or as envelopes, didn't realize I could just repurpose the pack of that cheap scrapbook paper to do the same thing.  This is a very inexpensive and quick way to get nice background lightweight cardstock which can be embellished further, I could also run through my wide format printer and print on top of the painted side, see some of my previous experiments doing this with my painted gelli papers here.

One tip I learned making the boxes is not to score to hard on this cheap scrapbook paper, a gentle scoring works better, 

Very Inexpensive multimedia background papers

In my continuous play and experiments, esp with background papers, art journaling techniques and finding new uses for silkscreens, stencils, etc I have made a neat discovery.

I bought a package of full page shipping labels very cheaply from Amazon $12.97 for 100.  I thought it would be great to paint and then peel off back and already have adhesive on the paper.  Some I did just this way, then I could cut into shapes, or whatever to use as needed.  Also could gelli plate print them.  Then, purely by accident, I painted the wrong side, that is the part that peels away with no adhesive on it.

I  had fun using credit card to spread paint, underneath was a texture sheet which leaves nice texture as I go.  Also, very economical since only a thin layer of paint is used when spreading with credit card.  I liked it , especially the nice satiny finish of the paper until I realized it was the peel away part (maybe plasticized? somewhat?)  It had a nice feel when the paint was on it.  Then I thought, these labels are printable with either ink jet or laser, but perhaps not the wrong side?  what if I printed something on it, would inkjet ink stick?  I have an Epson WP4530 inkjet printer, so I set it up for thick paper and used the back loading tray and printed these gals on it.

Then I thought what if I painted the other (right) side, would I mess up this side in anyway, i.e., bleeding through, etc.  I knew the other side was the one that would have a full coverage of adhesive, but this one would not, and to use I would have to add adhesive.  So I painted away, even using some embossed cardstock underneath to create some texture and here is the resulting other side with silver paint scraped onto plastic stencil as well.

Next shows when I fold over, the other paper o the other side with no bleeding through, although I did get a little on the edge as I scraped and moved page onto some paint, nothing major though