Posts Tagged ‘packaging’

Party in A Box by Katie

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Until I get my studio set up at our new place, I’ll be posting mostly thrifty finds, ideas & guest posts. If you’re interested in guest posting here, please email submissions (photos at least 500px wide) to melissa at melissaesplin dot com.

Hello ISLY readers! This is Katie from hello truelove. A big thank you to Melissa for having me on her blog today! A friend of mine is having a baby soon and I am very sad that I won’t be able to have a baby shower for her here in NYC. You see, she used to live on the East Coast but she is a West Coast girl these days. One of our mutual friends is headed out to see her in a couple of weeks and I thought it’d be fun to send her a mini-baby shower in a box. Now, in my opinion, a party in a box must contain:

a) Something frivolous and decorative

b) Something sweet (or at least something to munch on!)

c) Gifts, of course!

So, I broke out some trusty tools and went to work.

My first idea was for a little safety pin banner. I printed and cut out the letters and used double-sided tape to stick them on my punched hearts.

Then I punched two holes in each heart and used the safety pins to connect the hearts.

Last, I tied some ribbon on either side so it’ll be easy to hang when she starts the party;)

As for the gifts, I wanted to get her some practical stuff…

and some things that were too cute to resist.

You didn’t think I was going to send something without proper NYC love, did you?

I managed to find an old map and punch some hearts out of that too:) Since my friend was kind enough to volunteer to carry the gift on the plane I kept the wrapping simple.

Have you ever sent a party in a box? Since I’m not from New York there are lots of people I love who are far away. I only wish I had started the tradition sooner! A party in a box seems like the perfect way to send cheer to family and friends if you can’t be with them during the holidays!

I love this idea, Katie!  Thanks for sharing! Be sure to check out Katie’s blog Hello True Love & shop Hello True Love Paper Goods.

Sewn Paper Boxes

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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.

My New Favorite Tool + Freebie

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This post is brought to you by Silhouette.

If you follow this blog at all you know that I love paper crafts. My friend Heather recently introduced me to a new paper-crafting tool that has blown my mind and opened up a whole range of craft and design possibilities.  It’s called a Silhouette SD.  I’ve seen cutting machines floating around the craft stores for years.  They use expensive cartridges pre-programmed with stock word art.  The Silhouette is entirely different.  It’s a computer peripheral that takes your true type fonts and digital designs and cuts them with PERFECT PRECISION.  Glorious.

Silhouette sent me a machine to test out about two weeks ago. I was in Arizona when it came, so I was more than a little jealous that Chris was home all alone with my new Silhouette SD.  He kept teasing me about all of the fun he was having with “his Silhouette”.  My husband senses gadget lust on my voice and moves quickly to exploit it for his own entertainment. At least he didn’t unbox it while I was gone. That’s not a line that he wants to cross. ;)

Silhouette machine with heat transfer material, vinyl, and rhinestone starter kit

My first impression was that the packaging is surprisingly clean.  The only other gadgets that I’ve purchased that had this level of attention to detail in the packaging was my Apple iMac and my Wacom tablet. The cutter itself is very light and attractive. The first words out of Chris’s mouth as he lifted it out of the box were, “Wow! It’s so light!”  The only two machines on our office table are the iMac and the Silhouette, and they make excellent desktop friends.

Installation was a tad tricky for a few reasons. First, we don’t have a PC. The silhouette is optimized for Windows, but can be used with Macs. Second, I was connecting the Silhouette through the USB hub on our backup hard drive. You’ll want to connect it directly to your computer to clear up any potential communication issues. Third, I was trying to install the illustrator plug-in for the Silhouette, not the Silhouette SD. There’s a difference. I was in business once I installed the correct software (Cutmaster 2 for CraftRobo 1.61 I have this for CS3, btw) and read this tutorial.

Mac users need Adobe Illustrator to use the Silhouette SD, because Silhouette America has yet to publish a standalone cutting application for the Mac. My contact with Silhouette says that they’ll have a dedicated Macintosh application in the near future.  This is good news for Mac users who don’t already own a copy of Illustrator.

I can’t quite describe how much fun I have watching the Silhouette cut a project. I’m like a little kid waiting for Santa Claus. I hover over the cutter, craning my head all over the place to catch a peek of the cutting blade in action.  It makes this awesome robot noise as the paper jerks in and out and the blade zooms back and forth along its tracks.

I needed a worthy project fast, and I quickly realized that I needed to cut out everyone’s names for Easter Sunday dinner. I used Bodoni font, squished each letter together and used the pathfinder tool to make each word one shape. The names didn’t take very long, so I whipped out an extra one for my mom and sent it along with a gift box I was prepping for her.

I submitted the above word art to Silhouette, and they’ve decided to offer it for free on the Silhouette online store. Click the “Purchase Online” button within the Silhouette software to view & download these graphics for free! YUP. Free. There are even two 10ss rhinestone graphics, perfect to add a little bling to some baby onesies. Mac users cannot access the Silhouette online store, but don’t feel left out. Just email me and I’ll send you the artwork. ;)

EDIT: Download my baby graphics for free by clicking the download button below! ENJOY!! And, as always, these graphics are free for personal use only. If you would like to use these graphics commercially, please email me. Thanks!


Currently I’m a little obsessed with the “baby” and “girl” graphics. Do I sound a little baby hungry?

I just wrapped up a little gift for my friend who’s having a girl soon. Doesn’t the girl word art look so cute when tied to the package? Ugh. I’m a woman obsessed.

The silhouette isn’t limited to word art. Check out their “What Can It Make?” section for more ideas. Penelope’s grandparents live far away, so we can’t forget to share her photos and videos with them. It’s been a while since I’ve burned them a CD or DVD, so I cut these cases to provide myself with a little motivation.

I’ve always printed and cut out my own CD sleeves, but it’s a time-consuming, hand-ache-inducing process.  The digital cutter speeds things up considerably.  I cut the card stock down to size, run it through the Silhouette, fold and glue.  If I’m going to make one, I might as well make ten.  Or twenty!

My contact at Silhouette hooked me up with a huge discount to share with ISLY readers, so this is your chance.  If you find yourself with a healthy combination of papercraft desire and spare change, check out the Silhouette store and make sure to place your order before MAY 8, 2010 to get $50 off a Silhouette machine and 10% off everything else in the Silhouette store. They’ll throw in 10 feet of vinyl, 10 feet of transfer tape, and a hook and scraper to sweeten the deal.

Full Disclosure:  Silhouette sent me a Silhouette SD in exchange for my honest review.  I suspect they knew that I’d love their product.

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