Are you planning a rustic country wedding? Do you need ideas for unique wedding decor that is easy on the budget? Then you're going to love this one-of-a-kind personalized rustic wedding card box idea that can be made for pennies with scrap wood.

It's made to look like an oversized wooden tool caddy and has a removable lid with a card slot. To add even more country charm, the handle is a repurposed antique chair spindle! I'll show you how easy it is to build and how to personalize it with the bride and groom's name.

One-Of-A-Kind Wedding Card Box Idea

The nice thing about this wedding card box is that the newlyweds can easily remove the lid after the wedding and use it as decor for their love nest. Or they can keep the lid on and use it for wedding keepsakes.

The motivation for making this unique wooden wedding card box caddy was for our daughter's small-town country wedding. She wanted unique one-of-a-kind rustic wedding decor on a budget. We also made a tiered Rustic Wedding Cupcake Stand for the wedding too.

The inspiration for the chair spindle handle on the wedding caddy is from an old dilapidated antique chair that my son gave me knowing I'd find a use for it.

Piece by piece I've been slowly finding ways to repurpose the chair parts. I made a dog leash holder with the seat and a unique bird feeder with the chair back. You can see the other ideas on my repurposed antique chair page.

Here's How I Did It

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Wedding Card Box Dimensions

• Front and Back Pieces: 8 1/2" x 20 1/2"
• Side Pieces: 5 1/2" x 19" x 2"
• Lid: 20" x 20"

The wedding card box is assembled exactly the same way I built smaller garden caddy versions. You'll find the detailed assembly instructions here in my antique chair spindle caddies post.

Wedding Card Box Lid

Now that the wooden caddy is assembled, it's time to make the hinged lid with a card slot.

1. Find the center of the 20" x 20" piece of plywood both vertically and horizontally.
2. With a straight edge draw a line 9-inches long on either side of the center mark.
3. With the straight edge draw the card slot opening about 3/4-inch to 1-inch wide (enough to allow thicker cards to fit through the slot).
4. Drill a hole on either end of the slot (inside the marks) for pivot holes for a jigsaw (pictured below).
5. Use a straight edge clamp or a straight piece of wood like I did (pictured below) as a cutting guide.
6. Clamp the lid and cutting guide securely onto your work table.
7. You can use a jigsaw to cut the slot like I did or even better is a band saw or scroll saw.
8. Smooth the edges of the card slot with 80-grit sandpaper.

1. You'll also need to use your jigsaw to add notches on the back of the lid for hinges. The hinges you choose will determine the size of the notches. Sorry, I completely forgot to take a photo of this step but you can see the notches in the photo below.
2. To smooth the edges of the lid you can either use a mouse sander OR a router tool with a quarter-round router bit like I did (pictured below).
3. Sand the entire wooden caddy with 150-grit sandpaper before moving onto the next step.

How To Age The New Wood

Now that the caddy is assembled, we're going to add rustic charm by making the new wood look old. You can do this naturally with my homemade aging solution recipe made from things found in your kitchen pantry.

Brush it on with an inexpensive chip brush and let it dry. If it's not dark enough, reapply it until you like the aged patina.

Rustic Whitewash Paint Finish

After the now aged wood has dried overnight, we'll add a thin wash of white paint over top. To do this thin white chalk paint with water to a milk-like consistency. Brush the thinned white paint over the caddy and wipe it with a lint-free rag.

This will give the wood a whitewashed patina with some of the stained wood peeking through from underneath. Repeat the whitewash until you're happy with the look.

Securing The Lid With A Love Lock

Before adding the love lock, attach the hinges to the back of the lid and onto the caddy.

I unsuccessfully tried finding a small heart-shaped lock locally for the lid. I did find some heart-shaped locks online but couldn't get them shipped in time for the wedding.

To improvise I simply glued a faux heart lock that I found at Michaels to the front of a small padlock with E6000 glue. Then I tied a pretty white ribbon onto the padlock key and gave it to the bride and groom for safekeeping.

How To Personalize The Wedding Card Box

In PicMonkey I created a graphic with the Bride and Groom's names and their wedding date. I changed the graphic to a mirror image (to print in reverse).

To transfer the graphic to the front of the wedding card box I used this image transfer technique. Please note that you'll need an inkjet printer for this technique. If you have a laser printer, then you could use this image transfer technique instead.

Wedding Card Box Banner

Hang a mini banner from the chair spindle handle so guests know to place their gift cards inside the wedding caddy. Three elements in my daughter's wedding decor were; burlap, wood, and white lace.

I found some pretty burlap and lace circles in a Vintage Country scrapbook paper booklet that I had on hand. Here are some ready-made mini burlap and lace banner alternatives that you may like.

First, I tied a strand of twine to the chair spindle handle. Then I attached wooden letters to the front of the lace banners to spell CARDS with mini clothespins and hung them from the twine. Easy peasy!

Thanks for stopping by the Interior Frugalista today! I hope you were inspired by this idea for a country wedding card box

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