Spray Painted Decorative Boxes

I was organizing some of my board game collection the other day and realized I had some empty boxes from expansions. The extra pieces and new rules fit in with the base game, so the boxes were destined for the recycle bin. But they were such nice sturdy boxes, it seemed a shame to toss them, so I figured I'd try spray painting them.

I started with an ombre method that I used before to spray some cylindrical tins and some terracotta flower pots. I used a teal, medium blue, and a purple spray paint.

I started out with the teal (Rustoleum's lagoon). It's a pretty bright color that has great coverage, so I knew it would be my primary color. I sprayed the ends and the top half of the boxes with the teal and then set them aside to dry.

Then I set them down and sprayed the blue across the middle.

Then I sprayed the other end purple. I did have to set the boxes up and spray the edges to cover the printing and the bright orange color of the original box. This box had a relatively loose fitting top, so as long as the spray paint is allowed to dry all the way, spraying the sides shouldn't be a problem.

The other box I had was a bit tighter fitting, but the sides of the bottom box were plain black, so I didn't need to spray them if I did a space pattern. I've been working on perfecting my galaxy spray paint methods over the last couple of months. First with some plastic composition notebooks and then with some dollar store altar candles.

So I set my two halves of my box out and sprayed them black with a little bit of blue.

After they had dried, I had to spray the sides of the top half of the box to hide the printing.

Then I selected my teal paint (same as above) and made some random striping or veins across the box.

Then I added in some purple striping. And finished it with some metallic silver and a bit of white. If you think you're paint is getting to mixed, adding some black can help to break it up again. I just added paint until I thought it looked space-y enough.

Then I pulled my box halves out to dry. Spray paint usually dries to the touch in minutes (if the weather conditions are right), but it takes 24-48 hours to dry fully--longer if it's humid. Be sure not to put your box halves together for a few days to make sure they don't end up sticking.

I'm pleased with how these boxes turned out. I ended up with some cute little storage boxes that are no longer destined for the trash. The little galaxy box might benefit from a few tiny stars painted on, but they are perfect for storing colored pencils or pens or playing cards or any number of small items you might have laying around.