I always find that I don’t have any boxes when I need them most. I hardly ever keep boxes or buy boxes just because they tend to take up so much space. And I can never seem to keep the right sized gift boxes in stock! It’s especially the pits when I’m looking for some adorable packaging for a gift. It’s such a pain to run those errands with two kids. I’d much rather make do with what I’ve got at home. Since that’s the case, I’ve found two adorable packaging options with items I always have on hand.
My friend just had a baby girl a few weeks ago & I’ve had a few goodies lying around the house waiting to go to her. Since we were going to be visiting her yesterday, I thought it was high time I wrapped up her gift.
Isn’t that cardigan just so sweet?!? I found the sweater, it was hand crocheted (?) I’m assuming and I made the little onesie. I think they’re just adorable together. I needed a little box for it all so I whipped up the above box lickety split. I thought I’d share with you how I did it! This technique is perfect for little treats & gifts! Hope you enjoy the tutorial!
• S U P P L I E S •
- card stock or heavy paper. I’ve doubled up two sheets of regular paper before with great success, too!
- ruler
- bone folder or scorer
- paper cutter or ruler & X-acto
- sewing machine
First, you want to figure out the size of your desired box. I usually just wing it when it comes to these measurements. If you want your side wall to be two inches, you’ll want to measure two inches in from each edge. Makes sense? See diagram below for measurements.
Score along each line. Crease each fold, then match up each corner score. You’ll need to box out the bottom & then crease out to the corner. It’s sort of hard to explain, but in the process of matching the two perpendicular score lines, you create a 45º from the score corner to the corner of the page.
Keep those two score lines together & sew down that score line using your widest stitch. Make sure you test out your thread tension beforehand to make sure it’s tight enough, otherwise you’ll have some loosey goosey stitches in the back of each seam. It’s not pretty. Also, I used a zipper foot in order to sew this seam. I just need a straight stitch & I needed the foot to be as small as possible to get a straighter line.
Trim the excess with pinking shears. Another method which I find a bit cleaner, is to sew the flaps to the sidewall with only a few stitches on each side. The measuring for this is a bit trickier. You have to make sure those two flaps are long enough to overlap in order to sew. So you make sure in your measurements that the sidewall is longer than 1/2 of the length (plus 1/4 inch) of one of the bottom measurements. Example: If I want the box to be 4 inches by 5 inches, I need to make sure the wall is at least 2 1/4 inches tall so the flaps can be sewn together. Make sense?
Check out the video ABOVE to see how I did this.
A big thanks to American Crafts for sending me their CUTUP trimmer. It’s fantastic! Check out the video above to see all of its bells & whistles.
I don’t think I’ll be pairing this baby without the belt anytime soon, but I like it for some strange reason. I feel like when paired with the cowl, it adds a lot more volume to my bust – not necessarily a bad thing for a girl of my proportions.
I am tempted to make the back more of a racer-back rather than keeping it plain jane sleeveless. I think that might add a bit more style to the piece. What do you think? Should I make it a racerback?
