The Whiskey Box

     One of my best friends, Airicca, told me that she had read about a couple having a "whiskey ceremony" at their wedding.  The idea was to place whiskey in a box along with letters telling why you love each other and to seal it the day of your wedding.  Whenever you have your first big fight, you are supposed to break open the box, take a shot (or two) of the whiskey, read the letters, and remember that no matter how tough things get, you love one another. I thought, "WOW!...We have to do this at our wedding!".  

     I searched high and low for the perfect box...most were either too big or too small.  Then, out of nowhere, Matt's Aunt Sharon found one that was absolutely perfect for us! It was an old cigar box, but it was pretty good sized.  I showed Matt and he agreed that we could get a pint of whiskey in there. (Hopefully we wouldn't need more than a pint anyway! :p) Matt is in charge of procuring the whiskey, but I sure hope he gets Forty Creek! :)

     I set about trying to decorate the box. I went to Hobby Lobby and discovered the art of working with creative metal (really thin squares of metal that are easily shaped).  I bought a pack of copper squares and a texture roller.  When I got home, I played around with the metal a bit and got a good texture to put on the middle of the box to cover the castle and cigar brand that was imprinted on the box.  Before hot-gluing the metal down (because I was too cheap to buy special metal tape), I placed a 86 cent green rub-on letter I had found on clearance at Hobby Lobby in the center of the textured metal square.  After affixing the metal square to the box, I rolled some of my Firefly ribbon and hot-glued that around the edges for a softer look.

     Next, I cut some of the squares into pieces and textured them to cover up some writing that was in the lower right hand corner of the box lid. To make everything match, I put metal pieces on the lower left and two upper corners as well. To soften the edges of these and to add a little bordering, I used some ribbon that we had gotten early on from Micheal's that was green with purple dragonflies. The dragonfly is highly symbolic in Japanese culture.  They are said to have been first honored by the great founding emperor, Jinmu, after a dragonfly captured and ate another insect that had bitten the emperor. They have become an integral part of Japanese life symbolizing success, happiness, strength, and courage.  (After reading that, I attempted to put dragonflies into the wedding any way that I could!)

      For the final touches, I cut some of the glittery green and copper leaves from my Micheal's Christmas clearance stash and hot-glued them together. Next I rolled up some of my purple ribbon (also from Micheal's) to make little flowers and hot-glued those to the center.  I made four of these and hot-glued the accents onto the four corners of the metal square in the center.  It turned out super cute!

          

     On the bottom/back, I placed some an orange paper (which had fun-cut edges of course!) that contained a poem that I wrote. 

In case it is hard to read because of the flash in the picture, I've written it out below:

Whiskey Box Instructions

For times with far less ups than down,

For times when smiles turn to frowns,

For times when money gets tough to find,

For times when you feel you’ve been out-shined,

For times when illness seems to prevail,

For time spent waiting for a chance to exhale,

Open this box when on the brink…

Of mental exhaustion,

And take a drink!

Then read these letters, these reminders of love,

Then smile and kiss as you both rise above,

All the hard times of life, all the cold, rainy weather,

For there’s nothing in life that you can’t do together!