How to Make Your Own Gift Box

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 A few days ago I showed you a present Susy wrapped for her Mom with scrapbook paper.  When I was ready to wrap this birthday present for Susy I decided to take her idea one step further and make gift box out of scrapbook paper.

Making this box was actually very easy.  I did not use a pattern.  All I did was take out a ruler, 1 sheet of 12x12 scrapbook paper, a pencil, and a stick glue.


Sorry that I didn't take pictures when I did this.  If one single person ask I will make a new box and take lots of pictures of all the steps.

1)I knew a 3.5x4.5 object had to fit in my box.  Instead of doing fancy math I turned my paper upside down and set the object in the middle.  Then I took my pencil and made marks around the edges of the item that was going in the box.

2) I folded each side over at the marks.  Then I unfolded my paper.

3)  I now had a paper divided into 9 different rectangles.  I wanted my box to be 3.5 inches tall so I measured out all the fold lines 3.5 inches and then cut the paper with a paper trimmer.  If you don't have a paper trimmer you could use scissors and a ruler.

4) OK this step is a little confusing.  You want to cut every other fold that goes to the outside of your paper all the way down to the center square.  On the other lines that go to the center square you also want to cut all the way down to center square but this time over around 1/2 inch from the fold instead of on the fold.  This will make 4 tabs.  When you are done with this you will have 4 scraps of paper and your orginal paper should look like a plus sign with tabs.

5) Put glue on the tabs, fold the arms of the plus sign up and glue each tab to the wall next to it.  You should now have a box.

6.  Now time for the lid.  Glue your 4 scraps of paper together to make a new small piece of paper.

7) Turn your box over and repeat the steps.  A lid is really just a box that fits on top of your box.


I also made little containers for all the different kinds of watch parts I'm giving my wife for her birthday. 

For the large one I simply folded a scrap piece of paper in half.  Then I punched a hole in it with a 3 inch circle punch.  I cut a piece of vellum and glued it to the paper behind the whole so I could make a window.  Finial I put the watch parts in the center of the paper, glued around the edged and closed the package.

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The round containers were made in much the same way except that they were made by punching two 3 inch circles.  I then punched a 1 inch circle in one of those two circles and put vellum behind the punch.  The last step was putting the watch parts inside, gluing around the edges and and sealing each circle container.

I know thats a lot to do to wrap one present, but my wife appreciates presentation as I'm sure most scrapbookers do.

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PS: The paper  on the circle is an unfortunate scrap that made its way into the photo.  It is not part of the packaging.  Also I know these instructions are hard to follow without step by step pictures.  If you want a step by step photo post showing you how to make any of these project please let me know and I will gladly make one and add it to the blog.

Have a great day and happy scrapbooking.

Getting Geared Up for Steampunk Scrapbooking

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It's Susy's Birthday on the 23 so I've been busy preparing.  Step 1 is gifts and for months now I've been wanting to her her some watch parts I saw on eBay. (I'm also getting her some other scrapbook supplies) I found the parts in this post for only $10 with shipping.  The secret is shopping around and then placing a snipe bid with a few secs on the clock.  I'm glad I won.  The parts are amazing and I'm sure Susy will love them.

Maybe someday when our store is bigger I will have the shelf space to buy items like this and list them in a scrapbook candy section for a few cents each.  Sadly that day will have to wait until our sales pick up and we can afford to expand past 500 items.

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I hope you enjoy the pictures.  If you do decide to go to eBay and buy your own gears please beware not every auction is equal.  I shopped around a lot for these and some auctions with this amount cost twice is much.  Also avoid auctions with words like "gear glitter".  One of the reasons I bid on this auction was the larger size of the items.  Some actions have mainly screws and other very small parts that actually almost qualify is glitter.  All I can do is wish you good luck in your search.

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One last note: if you look at the pictures some of the gears and other parts have long parts behind them that would make it hard to scrapbook with them.  After taking these pictures I used a pair of wire cutters to make these parts lay flat in a scrapbook.

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Tomorrow I'm going to show you how I wrapped this all up.  Until then have a great day and happy scrapbooking.

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Wrapping a Gift with Scrapbook Paper?

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We got Susy's mom perfume for Mother's Day.  However, procrastination got the best of us and we actually got the gift on Mother's Day.  After we got home and realized we had no girly wrapping paper we had to come up with different solution.

Next time you have a small gift to wrap and don't have the wrapping paper you need at home, think outside the box and check out your paper stash.  You might just love the result and save a few dollars in the process.

Have a great day and happy scrapbooking.

Handmade Mother's Day Card

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Susy made this Mother's Day card for her mom.  It took her a few minutes on the morning of Mother's day but turned out beautifully.  The other side of the tag has a letter to her mom and has more decorations. 

Her moms a sweatheart and cried when Susy gave her this card.

That's it for today.  Tomorrow I'm going make a post about the wrapping the present we gave her mom for Mother's Day.

I hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day.  Until tomorrow have a great day and happy scrapbooking.

Stamp Storage

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Do you have the storage blues.  Being a scrapbooker and storage needs go hand in hand.  There is always an amazing scrapbook deal that is impossible to resist or that really cool must have item.

There are many scrapbooking items that are hard to store, but near the top of the list has to be clear stamps.  They are sticky and it's hard to see the image on them.

Making it all the more confusing it seems sometimes like there are million people telling you a million different ways to store them.  I think we've officially tried all the ways now from cd cases to specially made books for clear stamp storage.

However this is our favorite method yet.

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Inque boutique stamp keepers.

Your clear stamps will easily cling snugly between the two panels.  Plus stamp keepers will easily fit in a large binder.  We actually keep ours standing upright in 13x13 box allowing us to quickly flip through them like files.

Susy takes a scrapbook paper and stamps a image of every stamp in each container on it.  Then she puts that paper inside the container.  This serves two important purposes.  First it makes it much easier to see what the stamps actually look like.  The other one is that it keeps the stamps from sticking to both sides of the container.

I hope this helps someone out who is looking for a good stamp storage solution.

Have a great day and happy scrapbooking