I love to re-use boxes. I love to paint them, decorate the lids, and fill them with something fun. I came across this narrow box in my stash the other day.  It was the perfect size to put pencils in.

Many of the art blogs I read are using sheet music in different ways.  Sheet music  is a beautiful art material that adds a sophisticated touch to paper projects.
I got a small paintbrush and some black acrylic craft paint and painted the box with two smooth coats and set it aside to dry.

I sanded the pencils well and then covered them by cutting strips of music to size and then putting wide double-stick tape (mine is the kind you use for framing) on each of the long sides. Then I carefully rolled the pencils up in the paper and pressed the end for a about a minute to make sure it was secure.

If you try this learn from my mistakes!

Make sure you put the adhesive all the way to the very edge of the paper or you’ll have the ends curl like the first pencil in the picture below. Also, be sure and measure each strip accurately or you will wind up having pieces that are too short like the second pencil.

When the box was dry I cut some red tissue paper to line it,  finishing the edges with the scallop scissors.

I decorated the lid with one of the strips of sheet music and some red velveteen ribbon. To make an accent I punched a scallop out of silver metallic card-stock and then 3 consecutively smaller circles out of black and red decorative paper.  For the smallest circle I punched out a treble clef. I forgot to take a picture of this step but you can see it further down. Then I used two additional strips and loosely hand-pleated them to form two half-circles.  I stapled those two “fans” together to form a rosette frame for the accent piece.