What to do with an old milk drop-off box

Have you ever woke up and realized you had a dream about an old box in a spider web infested corner of your garage? Well I did. I know, a little weird. After the dream I knew that old wooden box had potential.

A year or more ago we used to have milk delivered to us from a local dairy. I loved it until gas prices went sky high and it wasn’t worth the cost to have them deliver. The wooden box I had a dream about was the box they would put your milk in on your front porch. After we stopped getting the milk, the box went into the garage.

So here is the before pictures.
You can’t quite get a good enough picture of all the spider webs. I still can’t believe I pulled it out of where I did.
And I discovered where my daughter put the shovel and gloves she was playing with last year. The crusty yellow stuff is 2 year old spilled milk. Ya, that wasn’t so fun to clean off.

And it came equipped with a soon-to-be squished spider. I shiver every time I think I carried that in the house. I swore then and there if I saw another spider in the house that day, me and that box were through. (Yes I have major arachnophobia).
First I sanded the edges really good and all around. Hard to admit, but this was the first time I took out my husbands power tools. It was a rush. I think I’ve opened up a can of worms.
Then I copied off the font I wanted, and hand drew the symbol I wanted. I am not an artist, as you can see. The paper isn’t blue, that is just my blue walls reflecting on it.

After cutting out the letters with an exact-o knife I taped it where I wanted it. For the little pieces in the a’s and 0’s I stuck them on with fray check. It’s a glue, but I knew I would be able to scrape it off.
Then I took it outside and spray painted it. Now this is where I will suggest this is a bad idea. The spray paint spread more than I wanted it to. I found with the rest of it, it looks a lot better when I dabbed on craft paint with a brush. Lesson learned. And did you know you can kind of iron on freezer paper to wood? Don’t use very high heat, but the paper will temporarily stick there. It doesn’t work as good as it does on fabric, but it helps with the stenciling process.

After this I got to anxious to get it done so I forgot to get good pictures. But I just hand drew and cut out stencils of weed like looking things for the sides. Then dabbed on craft paint.
To distress it, I used a natural wood stain around the corners and edges. When that dried I used a distressed ink pad and wiped down the corners and edges even more, and then lightly all around.
For the inside I mod podged some paper in to add a splash of color.

And there she sits in my living room. I’ve yet to decide if it will serve as a magazine holder, toy box, or a place for library books.
Didn’t turn out quite like I had dreamed, but close enough. Now that this box has consumed my day, it’s time to figure out how a tornado hit my house, why nothing is done on my to-do list, and why my children are begging for my attention.