A Treasure Found!

Literally!  A fabulous find - treasure chest found at a flea market for $5!!  Yes $5 bucks!  How awesome is that?!?  My sister was on the hunt for nifty little finds as we prepared to plan my niece's Under the Sea themed birthday party.  She happened to be out at a flea market when she stumbled upon this beautiful treasure piece - a "treasure" literally.

This is the not so pretty BEFORE  picture, bought "as is".

Who would have ever thought that this could be transformed into an eye catching treasure chest?  I think so many of us would have quickly walked passed this little ugly duckling...  I'm so glad my sister did not!  She knew we could use it as part of the decor at the upcoming party we would soon be planning.

The beginning of the transformation began by stripping the whole chest.  Once it was stripped, we started to resurface it.  And how did we do that, you might ask.  Paint was not involved here.  No siree...  This gorgeous distressed cream surface is paperstock.  Yes sir!  The stars must have been aligned when we went to our local craft store because my sister bought the chest with the thought of giving it a vintage look.  As we walked down the paperstock aisle it was our good fortune or her good fortune I should say, she found this gorgeous paper in the middle of the loads of paper that sat up the aisle.  She showed it to me and we both were like OMG, that's it, perfect!

Tadaa!  This was the final product.

A close up of the distressed effect on the paperstock.

We didn't stop there.  We then moved into the interior - here's a before of the inside.

This is the  inside of the treasure chest once we embellished it.  We used paperstock, lace, chiffon flowers and adhesive pearls and rhinestones.  The dowels and ribbon laying in the chest are a sneak peak of a special favor we put together for all the little girls coming to the upcoming party.

That's it folks!  Hope you enjoyed this repurposed treasure chest project.  Stay tuned to see how we used it in the next event...