Last week I had my monthly Hands-On class and we made Mini Cards – little 3×3 cards with envelopes.  I wanted a box to hold them all in and found the perfect box in the Stampin’ Up! Holiday Mini Catalog.  It is the new Kraft Gift Box.  This one decorated in a very vintage style because I wanted to stick with neutral colors since I had an assortment of various colors and styles of cards that we were making in the class.  The box is the perfect size to fit 3×3 mini cards and envelopes but it is also a food safe box so you can fill it with cookies, candies or a muffin or cupcake – yum yum!

This is the side view of the box.  I stamped directly on the box using Early Espresso ink.  I used two different stamp sets – Best Friends Forever and French Foliage.  I also sponged the edges of the box on all corners with Early Espresso ink.  Around the base of the box is a strip of Early Espresso Patterns Designer Series paper – you need two strips punched with the Lace Ribbon Border punch.  You need a strip that has 12 full flowers – three for each side of the box.  So match up the ends of the two strips and glue together – I use a 2-way glue pen.  Then punch out 1″ circles in Very Vanilla card stock and glue to the back of the strip behind each flower.  It will look like this:

Then glue the strip around the base of the box – I used the Multipurpose Liquid glue in the green bottle to do this.  Just put  a tiny bit on the back of each circle and then glue three on each side of the box meeting in the back.

Here is a view of the top of the box –

I created a 3d flower for the top of the box.  I used the First Edition Specialty Designer Series paper.  I cut  3 of each layer – 3″ Circle die, 2-3/8″ Scallop Circle punch, 1-3/4″ Scallop Circle punch, and 1″ Circle punch.  Crumple up all the circles and then flatten out a bit and stack them.  They are not perfectly lined up on top of each other you want them to be a little off center from one another.  Once they are all stacked poke a hole through with the paper piercer and then stick in an Antique Brad.  Also poke a hole in the center of the box lid – push the brad through to secure the flower to the top of the box.  Take a Stampin’ Sponge and Early Espresso ink and sponge the petals of the flowers.

To finish I stamped “hand crafted” from Tiny Tags on Crumb Cake card stock and punched with the Jewelry Tag punch, sponge the edges, poke a hole and tie to the brad with a piece of Early Espresso Baker’s Twine.  Tie a piece of Crumb Cake Seam Binding around the base of the flower.

Now close the lid and take the whole box and put it inside the color catcher.  Spritz it all over with the Vanilla Shimmer Smooch Spritz.  On all sides and the top.  Let dry and you are done!  A beautiful gift box to give to someone special.

Over the next few days I’ll be sharing all the 3×3 mini cards that we made along with some instructions for each one.  So please come back to see them.

And here are a couple of other pictures I wanted to share with you from the class.  Aspen and Magnolia love my stamp classes because they get lots of attention from all of my stampers.  And they like to sit with us too.  So most everyone is willing to share a chair with the dogs – especially Aspen.  Here he is sharing a chair with Jeannette.

The chairs are just the perfect little head rest for the dogs.  Usually they sit on the other side of the table because then they can look out the window and see the chipmunks, squirrels, and birds out there.

A couple more things – it’s the LAST DAY for the Summer Mini Catalog on the Buy 3 Get 1 Free Designer Series paper sale.  Hurry and order today Wednesday, August 31st by midnight.  You can order online through my website store – click here.