Professional Boxes In All Sizes

As I mentioned in my earlier blogpost, I love making boxes. Since I joined Stampin’Up! My boxes have become much more beautiful and appear as if they were store-bought. With the quality cardstock that Stampin’ Up! sells, everyone can make beautiful boxes. In this tutorial I will try to explain what I do to make lidded reinforced boxes.

Measuring, measuring and measuring

The most important thing is to make sure your box fits whatever you want to put in the box and, more tricky, your lid has a thight fit with the box. For this instruction I chose te make a box so that a large Memories & More Cards fits on top of the lid. So my box measures 4” x 6”. To make the lid fit thightly on the box you have to make it 1/16” bigger on both sides: so 4 1/16” x 6 1/16”.

Then you have te decide how high you want the box to be. In this case I decided to make the box 1” high. As a rule of thumb, the lid should be about half to two-third’s of the hight of the box. In my case the lid is 5/8” high.

Now you can calculate the sizes of cardstock you need. For a reinforced box and lid you need two times the hight of the box on all four sides. So the card stock for the box measures:

1” + 1” + 4” + 1” + 1” = 8”
by
1” + 1” + 6” + 1” + 1” = 10”

Score at 1” and 2” on all four sides. Burnish all the score lines and cut away all the shaded squares. Now cut on the short sides on the second score line up to the second score line to create four taps. To ensure a nice fit when you glue the box together  you need to cut out small wedges on all four tabs and on the four sides. So you end up with this:

For the lid you need a piece of cardstock measuring:

5/8” + 5/8” + 4 1/16” + 5/8” + 5/8” = 6 9/16”
by
5/8” + 5/8” + 6 1/16” + 5/8” + 5/8” = 8 9/16”

Score on all four sides at 5/8” and 1 1/4”. The cutting on the lid exactly the same  as on the box.

Constructing the box

To make the box and lid also more sturdy on the bottom and on the top you can put an extra layer of paper or cardstock. For the box I put a piece of Happiness Blooms DSP on the bottom.

On the top of the lid I have chosen one of the Speciality Memories & More cards in matching colors.

It is easier tot put the paper on before you glue the box or lid together. First you glue together the box. You start by putting glue on the four tabs and adhere these to the sides, making sure all the corners are straight. Then you adhere the four sides inside the box. At this point you have created a reinforced box.

Fitting the lid

For the lid, you do the same. To make sure the lid has a thight fit on the box I adhere the tabs to the sides while the box is (upside down) in the lid. This ensures that the lid fits over the box. Do’nt adhere the tabs too thight, because the four sides need to be able to fit in as well.

Decoration

Now you have a perfectly fitting, lidded, reinforced box. All you need to do is decorate it. I chose to cut a stitched rectangle of Night of Navy cardstock and a smaller rectangle in Whisper White. I stamped a sentiment from the stampset “Incredible Like You” on the Whisper White. On a scrap of Whisper White I stamped the stem and two flowers from the “Bloom By Bloom” stampset and cut them out. I adhered the stem and flowers together with some enamel dots on the Whisper White rectangle and glued it on top of the lid.

And finished is your box. Once you now how to make this box you can make them in any size you want.

Varied boxes

I have made much more boxes in different sizes and colors. I’ll show them in one of my next blog posts. I hope you found this instruction helpful and will try to make a box yourself. I would love to see your box. You can leave a message or a photo on my FaceBook-page. If you have questions, feel free to ask. You can comment on this post, or email me directly at creamade@yahoo.com.