Kiwi love

Have you ever reached the "I'm sharing this amazing chocolate that my sister has brought me from New Zealand"-level of friendship? 
I can't tell which lucky coincidence has brought my colleague into my life, but since this girl marched right into her 30s recently, I started to look for a little something to sweeten up the process of getting older more experienced. 
It's been a while since I've created paper boxes, but I thought I might give it a try to create a chocolate bar envelope using a beautiful orange scrapbook paper. I like the way it has a different pattern on each side and thought it would be a quick and easy project to create a box and decorate it with some paper flowers and a birthday message. But as always, things come different in the end. 

The box did go easy indeed, and I felt confident enough to work around the chocolate bar itself, without any major markings and pre-cuts. However, there seemed to be too much orange halfway through, so I decided to cover the front lid with a beige embossed paper strip. 

Before I glued everything together, I used a small corner punch to round up the edges of the lid. Once that was done, I started to play around with the main motif. I wanted to stick to the idea of paper flowers, however, I decided to change the birthday greeting for the age, which I created by using golden stickers on a pair of punched paper leftovers. 
Since the punched ornament still seemed to be quite small, I expanded it by adding golden swirls and pearls, as well as three small orange-ish flowers. 

To make sure the box closes properly, I added a tiny orange ribbon, which also adds something "extra" on all the yawning blank that would be there otherwise.

The colour scheme of the box seems random, but is in fact matched with what's hiding inside: a chocolate bar from a land far, far away that survived not only the flight, but also the meticulous dividing done by my sister, who made sure each of us would get the most of all the different flavours she brought home.  

I did get some other pieces, too, but this one seemed to be the perfect giveaway for the occasion - not only for the matching outfit but for the fact that the birthday girl is very fond of spicy things. 

On the other hand, one must admit the wrapping itself is wonderful, too, and probably wouldn't need to be covered up at all - I can almost see myself using every tiny bit of the patterned paper in some of my recycling projects! 

But then again, life is full of surprises, and if only they were all as sweet and spicy as ginger & mandarin...

Only when I was done, however, I realized that I have entirely covered up the beautiful pattern that made me pick that particular paper in the first place. Entirely? Not exactly - even though there is no trace of it on the front lid, it's still pretty much on display all across the back of the box, which doesn't need the least of an embellishment thanks to the honeycomb print.

A little contribution to the October collection of Create in Austria - artwork created by Austrians and/or in Austria.

challenges: 
- krafty chicks: ATG with optional twist "gift packing/tags"
- 613 avenue create: ATG
- a bit more time to craft: ATG
- allsorts challengeblog: add gold/silver
- as you like it: favourite papers (among all the different papers I have in my stash, I regularly find myself using BoBunny products, or even grabbing a bunch of random papers in the store only to realize later that they have a BoBunny's logo somewhere on the side. Why? Because they come in beautiful soft colours, and their patterns can be used in so many different ways, and overall the BoBunny style just seems to match with my current style of paper crafting)
- brown sugar: ATG
- C.R.A.F.T.: Halloween/Thanksgiving
- cardz4guyz: food/drink
- crafting with an attitude: ATG
- crafty calendar: autumn
- crafty catz: ATG with optional twist "colours of autumn"
- crafty gals corner: Halloween colours
- crafty sentiments: ATG
- craftyhazelnutspatternedpaper
- creative inspirations: autumn/Halloween
- creative moments: ATG with optional twist "girls"
- cute card thursday: sparkles
- friendship challenge: autumn
- kreativtanten: ATG
- love to craft: ATG 
- moving along with the times: autumn colours
- pennys papertake: ATG
- scrapping4fun: ATG
- through the craftroom door: ATG
- wortartwednesday: ATG
- worldwide open design team challenge: ATG