DIY Airmail Inspired Place Card and Favor Box

For a while I was pretty stumped on what to do for place cards. Then my friend Jax suggested I use the favor boxes we had as place cards too. It was a stroke of brilliance!  (Another post to come soon about the favors themselves, promise.) 

First let me show you the inspiration for our favor boxes that will sit at each persons seat:

hgtv.com

The photo is the finished product from a DIY tutorial over on HGTV's website.   Are these not perfect?  I decided to give it a shot and see if I could duplicate something similar using the large round circle in the middle as the place "card".  (I purchased the 1.5" tall, natural kraft paper candy boxes from boxandwrap.com for .80 each but any box will do.)

Right away I ran into issues with the HGtv tutorial because most of the supplies listed were out of date.  So here are the supplies I substituted:

Any stamp pads will work.  I found a medium grey called London Fog, a medium green called Bamboo Leaves, a opaque white called Snow Cap and a reddish-brown called Sepia.  You will also need a sponge and very stiff large brushes.  I found my brushes in the kids craft section for a couple dollars.

Step 1:
Use one of the brushes to randomly tap/swipe the medium grey ink onto the box going heavy on the corners and edges.

Step 2:  

Repeat step 1 with the medium green ink but not as heavy.

Step 3:

Using a brush dap/tap the sepia ink onto a couple different key spots.

Step 4:

Using the sponge dab a SMALL amount of white on the corners and a couple spots on the top.  Use the sponge to blend it all together.

Step 5:

Using a stamp and a dark brown ink, add hand writing to the top of the box.

Step 6:

I had Laurel at Go Against The Grain create the design for the stickers.  I used Avery sticker paper to print them on and then cut them out.

Step 7:

Finally use the same dark brown ink from step 5 to stamp a cancellation over the top right stamp.

Add a little twine and you have the final product:

I am SOOOO happy with how these turned out.  I wasn't sure I was going to be able to follow the tutorial instructions but once I got started it was easier than I thought.  

Did you have any DIY project that went from 'I'm not sure I can do this' to 'holy wow look at how this turned out!'?