Little Cubes of Delight...

Happy Wednesday!

What is it about gift boxes?🎁🎁 They are just cubes of mystery and suspense, especially on your birthday. We all love to be handed a little gift that is neatly wrapped and tagged just for you.  The first instinct we have to shred that puppy apart to see what it is on the inside. Whether it's candy, a cool gadget that we have been wanting, or, if you have a clown in the group, a box of gold painted rocks. We all just want to tear it up to get to the goodies in the middle.

I have been obsessing over making little cubes of delight, since I have been in a card making rut. I needed a change of pace, so I did a search on Pinterest and found some cute patterns for gift boxes. Both of these are from other Stampin' Up demonstrators. I will give them credit at the end of the blog.

The first box I made is a small 3"x 3"x 3" box with a window on the front. It's made with the Lots to Love Box framelits. It's a cute box perfect for small goodies or gift. I put some of our shredded paper in the box and tied a little bow on the top.

The box is made with Pool Party card stock and Delightful Daisy Designer Series Paper. The heart window is cut out with the heart shaped thinlit die from the Lots to Love Box framelit. A square piece of acetate is glued in between the patterned paper and the card stock to create a window without all the yummies falling out. It takes 4 of the framelit die cut outs for each side. I used twine on the flaps since I punched 1/8" holes into the flaps. I really like this box and I'm gonna make about 7 of these for my son's class. I think any other large thinlet shape would be great as a window. I will attach my instructions for the box at the end too. It's a lot easier than it looks. 

The second box is pretty amazing. It's a card box. It's large enough to hold 8-10 regular sized (5 1/2" x 4 1/4")  cards. I'm gonna use this at craft shows. I plan to make a gift set for my customers to buy. It will be a set of matching greeting cards within a box to store them. 

The box is made with 2 12' x 12" scrapbook pages. One for the box and one page for the decorating. The box is easy to make if you have the right tools. Of course, I don't 😐 , so it was little complicated. It's recommended to have a score board to make the correct score lines. I used my bone folder and a ruler to score my lines. The patterned paper I used was once again Daisy Delight Designer Series Paper. 

After I made the box and decorated it, I added a stamped image from the Bella and Friends Stamp set and the Just For You sentiment from the Good Day stamp set. I thought it would be really handy that the box would store the cards securely, so I added an adhesive backed velcro to the inside flap. 

I'm in love with both of these boxes. I have made a bunch of them and I'm constantly coming up with ways to improve or modify them to my style.  I hope you will be inspired to make one or two as well. 

If you do, please, share your pictures of the project on my facebook page Paper Penguin. 

Have a great hump day!! 

K🐧

Gift box Instructions: 

Materials:

• Lots to Love Framelits (Occasions Catalog)

• Solid Main color card stock
• 4 pieces cut at 4 1/2” x 6 3/4” you will cut the box panels out of this
• 1 strip cut to 2” x 11 1/2” this is to die cut large heart shape 

• Designer Paper (patterned paper)
• 4 pieces cut at 2 3/4” x 2 3/4” 
• 1 strip cut at 3” X 12” This is to cut top flaps out. 
• scrap pieces to die cut small hearts out 

• Acetate
• 1 piece cut at 2 3/4” x 2 3/4” 

• Multimedia liquid glue
• Dimensionals
• Glue runner
• Bone folder
• Score board
• scissors & paper trimmer 
• Big Shot

Instructions:

1. Using the 4 1/2” pieces of solid cardstock die cut 4 box framelits
2. On 2 of the box panels trim off the side flaps completely off. The other 2 panels will need just need the top 1/2” flaps cut off and the bottom 1” cut off
3. On all 4 pieces measure from the bottom of the die cut panel to 1 7/8” and score a line.
4. Take 1 piece of the 2 3/4” patterned paper and die cut a large heart out of the center. 
5. Place the die cut pattern paper on the center of a box panel. Trace the heart cut out with a pencil. 
6. Line up the heart die on the traced image and die cut. The heart cut outs must line up. 
7. Glue the acetate on top of the heart shape cut out on the box panel. 
8. Glue the patterned paper on top of the acetate piece. Making sure the heart cut outs line up. 
9. Then center the other 3 pieces of 2 3/4” patterned paper on the center of the 3 remaining box panels. (The center will be the square made by the score lines.)
10. Cut  out 3 large heart die images from the solid strip and 4 small heart images from the scrap patterned paper. 
11. Decorate each box panel as desired. (I glued large shapes on each panel with a small heart popped up with dimensionals. 
12. Fold all score lines, except the center score on the top flap. Make sure to make Sharp creases so the box has good angles. 
13. Glue 1 box panel that has flaps to 1 box panel that doesn’t have flaps.  Glue the remaining 2 panels together. Then glue the pairs together. 
14. Fold the bottoms in. Fold and glue the flap of the front panel last. 
15. Using the 3” strip of patterned paper do a partial die cut of the box panel. Only cut the top flap of the die. 
16. Do NOT fold the top flap at the center score. The patterned paper will cover the solid paper.  If you want it to be smaller so the solid mats the patterned then trim a little off of all edges. 
17. Then use an 1/8th punch or hole punch to place holes on 2 of the top flaps.
18. Tie a ribbon through the holes. 
19. Fill with favorite goodies. This will be great with the shredded paper that Stampin’ Up sells in bags of 3. I filled my with silver. 

This was inspired by UK demonstrator Jan BCards. I just wanted to give credit where credit is due.

http://flowerbug.typepad.com/my_weblog/2013/04/freakin-birthday-bash.html

This is the link I used from Pinterest. It's LeeAnn Greff of Flowerbug's Inkspot. I used a 12" instead of the 11".