Photo Box Tutorial 1 comments  

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The second thing that I came up with for cutely storing a bunch of photos that you dont feel like scrapping, is a little embellished box. I made mine half out of cardstock and half out of the patterned paper, but you could do the same thing with a lightweight cardboard like a cereal box, if you wanted it to be a little more sturdy.

Here is what it looks like finished.

To start out, again I used my 4x6 photo stand-in. I just laid that down in the middle of the paper, and drew lines on all four sides of it, so that the lines are not right up against the photo, but give a hair on all sides so the photos will fit in and come out easily.

Next I cut notches on what will be the four corners. you want to cut straight down the pencil line on the side that will fold up to be the end of the box, and at a slight angle on the piece that will be the flap. Strictly speaking the notch isnt necessary, you can just cut a straight line there, but the notch made it easier to show where I cut, and if you don't have the notch sometimes the corners can get, well, crowded for lack of a better word.

then I realized - ooops I dont need my box to be that tall, I only want it to be about an inch tall, so I used my trusty inch wide ruler to cut what will be the sides, down to an inch each. notice how I did the notched parts first, then folded them in, so I didnt accidentally cut my notches off. I also trimmed the flaps down a little, because they were too long. Then I folded the four sides up. 

As you fold the sides up you will see how the flaps fit inside the folded up sides, just put a little glue on two of them, and hold together until they stick. I used magnets to hold mine down while it dried. You could use glue dots or whatever, but I find that liquid glue holds up better to the wear and tear that happens on projects like this as they get used. After that is dry, you repeat on the other side and you have your box bottom.

Now, we learned a little making the first part, so this time I put the box bottom an inch in from the edge (the ruler is covering an inch of the paper) again you will see that I left just a hair between the ruler and the box bottom. We want the top to be a little tiny bit bigger than the bottom. Mine ended up just a little bit too big, but it still works, but you could leave just a hair less than I did. (although it is hard to see) 

anyway, with the ruler lying at your inch mark, draw a pencil line.

Repeat on all four sides. on the sides that are not right against the edge of the paper, you want to draw lines on the outside of your ruler too.

now this is how mine looks

then you can cut all the way down that left most line, and save that excess piece for later

Again cut your notches. Here you can see better how they go - straight on what will end up being the side of the box, and at a slight angle on what will be the tab/flap.

Then erase your pencil lines. But do it VERY CAREFULLY. don't be stupid like me and tear your paper.

Then, as before, fold and glue.

AND if you do tear your paper, I provided a solution for that. haha! since I HAD to, since my paper was torn. But it gets the bonus of strengthening the top of the box a little.

I glued ribbon all the way around the top edge of the top of the box.

and here is how my finished box looks.

now we will decorate the top. I put the box aside and cut a rectangle of paper just a little smaller than the top of the box. Then I got the ribbon out and tied a bow. Since the little snowflake was not where I wanted it to be, and I didn't want to re-tie the bow, I took the snowflake off. It was stuck on with a glue dot but if you carefully peel it off, it should come off. Then just put it aside for later.

Then I cut one end of the ribbon as shown. You may be better at tying ribbons than I am. But I knew that if I cut the tails of the ribbon off first I would never get the ribbon tied and centered the way I liked it. I happened to end up with enough on one side of my ribbon tail, to do the first part of the cross.  You can cut your ribbon in different order depending on how you tie it. or you can cut the pieces off first and then tie it. it's up to you. 

so I cut that end, then I cut the other. Then I glued them in an off center cross shape (like wrapping a present) but only glue one end of the long strip to the back. 

because here is a little trick, twist the ribbon where you want the bow to go and it will look like you tied the bow as part of the ribbon, rather than as two different steps like you actually did. now, when you twist it, it wont look as good as mine does in this photo, that's because I twisted it twice, then glued the small side down with some glue dots or whatever, then fidgeted around with the ribbon that is coming out of the twist, until I got as much showing as possible and lying flat, then I glued that with some glue dots, then continued down the strip, wrapped it around the back and glued it with fabritac to keep it there. So, if, when you twist it, it doesnt look good, just fidget with it a little. It never looks good the first time right when you do it.

Then glue the bow onto the twist with some fabritac or a really strong glue dot.

Finally, I made the title block. First I cut two pieces of paper to mat on on the other. I made it the right height to fit nicely on the box, and did the punching and inking, but I left it a little long on the right. I knew I was going to have to work to get the word memories to fit on the box top. So I carefully laid down all the letters for memories first GENTLY don't push them down in case you have to move them. Then I made a mark where I wanted to cut, and peeled the S back off. Then cut the cream paper then the striped to fit, glued them together and added the S back. THEN I border sticker and the word snow a little off center, and topped it all off with the snowflake. I had a chipboard snowflake. But if you dont have one, you can just use the snowflake sticker that I used on top and use pop dots under it to give it some dimension. (first put it on your clothes or carpet or something a couple times to get it un-sticky)  And then I added the snowflake from the ribbon back.