Halloween Damask Cardboard Bag

I like to encourage the wearing of costumes to my parties.  I love wearing costumes.  I love seeing other people's costumes.  I get ideas.  And more ideas.  Well to encourage wearing costumes I like to "advertise" a prize on my invitations.  Last year I had 3 categories, "Best Dressed," "Best Dressed Couple," and "Most Creative."  I haven't decided on the categories this year though, because I have a much smaller group of people coming.  I also plan on having a murder mystery type game that would have a prize as well.  So I was on the hunt for "containers" to put these prizes in.  I saw a pin on making fabric covered cardboard bins, but Halloween fabric is definitely not out yet.  While I was on a trip to Burke's Outlet one Friday (Friday is 15% off day) I found two of these cardboard-like containers.  

They were $4.99 each (plus that 15% off or $4.24) and I was thinking I would just cover them in fabric or paint them.  First thing I did when I got them home, was rip off the pink ribbon.  I tried to be as careful as possible, but i did take off some of the cardboard finish.

After thinking about it, I decided I liked the idea of keeping the design.  I do like the damask-like pattern, I think it can work with Halloween, like a classy spooky.  I really didn't want to have to paint over all that pink with a brush, that's a lot.  I went on the hunt for a paint pen.  I did finally find one that came in a set of 4 different colors, but the set was $10.  Unfortunately Walmart is the only craft store I get to choose from in small town Texas.  

 
So I started to just trace all of the pink with the orange paint marker.

 
It took a couple days of random tv watching time, but I got all the pink covered up with the orange paint.  It didn't seem to be smudging or anything either, which is usually a good sign.

I had been on the hunt for some orange felt, thinking I could use felt on the inside.  I knew paper would work, but I would need a pretty big sheet to cover the entire inside.  Even after looking as some online fabric sites, I only found orange felt in the little squares.  I decided to haphazardly try to paint over the inside pink with some orange craft paint.  And it actually worked.

So the last step was to replace the pink ribbon with an orange one.  I had some orange grosgrain ribbon left from last year's Halloween projects.  I just lined the ribbons up and cut.

I was thinking I would have to glue the ribbon on, but the glue from where I removed the old ribbon was still pretty sticky, so I was able to just line it back up and stick it on.  I'm not the best and fancy bows, but it appears to be tied well enough.

And here is the finished product.

And now I just need to figure out what will go inside the Cardboard bag.