Step-by-step: Lidded favour boxes made from old birthday and Christmas cards

Step-by-step: cute lidded favour boxes from old birthday/Christmas cards.
Great up-cycling idea to do in a classroom/playgroup…

You will need:

– a square greeting card (please make sure it’s a true square – PaperCrafty can show you how)
– a pen
– a ruler (or anything with a long straight edge)
– a pair of scissors 

COST: £0
AGE: 6+ (with help!)
TIME: 20 minutes

How-to:

Steps 1-4

• Take your square greeting card and cut it along the crease, so that you have 2 squares.  These will form the top and bottom of your box.  I used a thank you card from my talented neice, which is why you can see a lovely smiley face picture and kisses that she drew on the inside of the card.
• Find the centre of each square by using a ruler to draw from corner to opposite corner on the reverse of each square.  The point where they cross is the middle.
• Fold all the corners in to meet at the centre point and crease.  Do this with both squares.

https://www.instagram.com/p/a1XJMmmeim/

Steps 5-8

• Take the bottom of the box (originally the back of the card) and fold opposite sides into the centre.  Crease and unfold.  Repeat with the remaining sides.
• Cut along the dotted lines (see photo).  Do NOT cut all the way across – you should still have 1 piece of card.
• You will then be able to open out 2 pointed flaps on either side.

https://www.instagram.com/p/a1XqtBGej4/

Steps 9-12

• Lift up the ‘sides’ of the box base (the pre-creased bits, to either side of the flaps) and bend in the corners.
• Open out the small points at either side so that they overlap and pull the flaps over the top of those, tucking them inside to form the finished box base.
• Take the top of the box (originally the front of the card) and fold the sides almost, but not quite to the centre (see photo).  This is important, otherwise your box lid will not fit on properly.

https://www.instagram.com/p/a1XvEymekC/

Finishing off

• You can check if your lid will fit snugly before making any cuts, by placing the base of your box inside the folded ‘sides’ of your box lid (see photo).
• Cut along the dotted lines and open out your pointed flaps.
• Repeat the earlier steps to complete the box lid.
• Fit the box lid on to the base and add your sweets, gift, joke or other treat!

https://www.instagram.com/p/a1Xy8_mekM/

This is a great use for old birthday and Christmas cards (save this year’s cards to make into gift boxes for next year).  You could fill them with sweets and use them as stocking fillers, or as party favours.  Of course you can see if you look very closely that they once used to be cards, but I think that’s part of their charm!

If you wanted to make a more sophisticated version (or you wanted to make identical boxes, for a wedding maybe), you could make them out of plain white or cream card and decorate them with pretty washi tape).

I’d love to see your finished greeting card boxes and hear what you used them for – please do comment/link below, or tweet me!