~22~ Card Box

Photo taken from
http://craftyliu.wordpress.com/

Last night, after conferences, I came home and was in a mood to craft.  I've been thinking a lot about how I want to better market and package my cards so that people-anybody-might actually want to buy them.  I've been talking with my mom about how not many people want to buy just a single card, so the way that I have my Etsy shop set up right now, just doesn't make logistical sense.  A while back on Pinterest, I found this great looking card holder and pinned it as in inspiration for myself.  All along though, I was thinking I needed to buy the base and then cover it with pretty paper.  Do you know how impossible it is to find an 8" tall "magazine/paper holder", instead of the standard 11" size??  After discussing my frustrations with my wonderful husband, he suggested I just make one.  DUH!

I started by making a 1/2 size template to see how exactly everything should fit together and how big my cardstock needed to be to make this work.  I wanted my cards to stand up vertically and most of my cards are 5"x7", so I made the height of it 8", the width of it when put together 3", and the length of it 5 1/2".  When I measured out how long and wide my paper would have to be, it came out to 17" x 20".  That's a little big.  I then came up with the idea of cutting it out of 2 different pieces of paper and then fitting them together.  I mapped out one side of the box including the back the and front flap and then did then duplicated it on the other piece of paper for the right side.  I had enough scrap left over to create the bottom and front fold over flap-which was also done in 2 pieces. 

To make the card box, I measured the back panel at 1 1/2" and the side panel at 5 1/2" and the front flap also at 1 1/2".  Make sure to create a flap piece off of the of the 5 1/2" section to adhere to the base.  For the base, I created 2 strips.  One that had a 1" flap to attach to the back panel, and 5 1/2" for the length of the base.  Altogether, the strip is 6 1/2" long.  The other strip is to attach to the and creates the front flap.  this is divided into 3 sections, 3" to attach to the base, 3" for the front panel, and 1" to fold over the top as a flap for a total length of 7".   Before assembling I scored all of my folds on all of the lines using a bone folder.  

*To assemble the card holder*

Note: I used tape in these step-by-step directions; however, in the real thing, I used my ATG to make sure that all of the sides/pieces were well bonded together.                                                        Step1: Tape the two strips together.  Place the 3" end of the longer strip so that it over laps the 5 1/2" end of the other strip.  The end of the 1st 3" fold should line up with the end of the 5 1/2" section so that it is flush.                                              Step 2: Over lap 1 1/2" ends of the large side pieces so that they line up perfectly.  The 1" end from the long base piece should go between them.  From the end of the side pieces, the base piece should go 1", 5", 3", 3", 1"                                                         

Step 3: Pull in the tabs at the end of each side piece and pull the back spine up so that the flaps sit on top of the long base piece.  Adhere the tabs to the base.  Then pull in the end tabs (1 1/2" section) to the front and adhere them together.  Everything should line up flush-so that nothing is hanging off of the base piece.                

Step 4: Pull up the end piece from the front of the box and fold over the flaps you just taped together.  The 1" end piece should fold over the top and adhere to the inside. 

To decorate my box, I precut the patterned cardstock to the sizes that I wanted, leaving a 1/8" border around it and added them to the box template pieces before assembling the box.

The final product that I made last night is from the Citrus card stock, and measures 3" wide as opposed to the 1 1/2" I used in my how-to guide.  You can easily adjust the width of your box by changing the all of the 1 1/2" measurements to your desired width.  My 3" box will hold about 15 packaged cards. 

Now that I've figured out an easy way to make my boxes and customize each one with patterns and varying sizes, I've very excited to start mass producing them!  Look for posts to come highlighting my various designs. 

Have a great weekend!

Until next time,