Tiny Gift Box

Good things come in small packages right? Well, sometimes, the problem is, it can be difficult to pinpoint the right small package for the job. Some gifts aren't meant to be huge presents and it feels wrong to hide them in massive gift bags, but wrapping them simply in paper looks peculiar. This project seeks to solve that problem and also provide an added, distinct layer to the gift.

Materials Needed:

• Cardboard box (such as a cereal box or something made with similar material, not corrugated cardboard)
• Tape- preferably invisible tape or packaging tape
• Paper to cover box in- wrapping paper will look great, but plain paper works fine too
• Glue Stick
• Ribbon and superglue optional

Tools that would be useful:

• Scissors
• Ruler
• Pencil

The design is quite simple. Using a ruler, draw a net of a cube minus the top. By this, I mean, on a piece of cardboard, draw five squares- one in the center and one on each side of it. Each square should be 1 inch X 1 inch (2.54 cm X 2.54 cm). Neatness certainly counts.

After carefully cutting this out along only the outer lines, fold along each of the remaining lines. Make sure the label side is facing outward and the plain cardboard side is facing inward. Using small amounts of tape (the less tape you use, the easier it will be to glue later), connect the sides of the box to each other. Do not put any tape on the interior of the box.

The lid has a similar pattern as the box itself (both create 4 faces of a rectangular prism), but the design is different in dimensions and also in that, while the center shape is still a square, the four shapes surrounding it are rectangles. The center square of the lid must be slightly larger than that of the box as it must fit on the outside of the box. Instead of being 1 inch X 1 inch, the center square on the lid is 1 1/16 inches X 1 1/16 inches (2.7 cm X 2.7 cm).

The rectangles surrounding it are 1 1/16 inches in length (2.7 cm) and 3/16 inches in width (0.5 cm). At this point, you will want to draw these shapes onto another piece of cardboard and cut the design out along only the outer lines. Once again, take your time- neatness counts.

After you have the design cut out, you will want to tape the flaps to each other. You will probably have to cut the tape with scissors to get strips thin enough. Once again, avoid getting tape into the interior. If the flaps keep coming apart from one another, try using one long but thin strip of tape and going around the entire perimeter.

At this point, you should essentially have a fully functional box and lid. The only issue is that it doesn't look as strikingly beautiful as you may want with the random words and food labels and such on the outside. The solution to that is to wrap your box in something- wrapping paper will work great, but regular printer paper will work fine too!

Seeing as how the paper is being wrapped around the outside of the box, the dimensions of the paper will have to be slightly larger than those of the parts of the box you are covering.

The first piece of paper you will need is to cover the sides of the box. The dimensions of this piece of paper are 4 1/2 inches X 1 1/4 inches (11.4 cm X 3.2 cm). Begin by using a gluestick to glue part of this piece of paper 1/4 inch away from one of the edges on the side of the box (refer to pictures above). Cut off the top of only this 1/4 inch section so it is flush with the bottom of the box. From there, continue folding and gluing until you have wrapped around all the sides and you are out of paper.

At this point, you should have excess hanging over the edge of what will be the bottom. Do not cut this flush. Instead, cut along the 4 creases to the bottom of the box so you have 4 little flaps. Cut the corners off two of these directly across from eachother, but leave them on the other two. Fold and glue down the two which you did not cut the corners off of and then fold and glue down the two that you did on top of them.

The remainder of the bottom that is bare can be covered by a 1 in X 1 in (2.5 cm X 2.5 cm) square of paper. I chose to cut mine down a little smaller before gluing it on as I felt it gave it a little more of a professional look, but how you choose to do it is obviously up to you.

The lid was more of a challenge for me to figure out how to wrap. I had a few failed attempts before landing on my current version. I ended up deciding to cut out a 2 inches X 2 inches (5.1 cm X 5.1 cm) section of paper. This will lead to excess paper, but you can always cut more off after you've glued it on.

Glue this onto the top portion with a glue stick. From there, cut the paper from each corner of the lid. This way, when folded against the side of the lid, a piece should stick out in front. That piece gets wrapped around the corner under the piece of paper that will be folded down for that side. If confused, please refer to the pictures above.

The fourth and last one will be the hardest- the overhang has to go under the paper that is already glued down. Simply, carefully peel up that section and place the extra flap underneath it.

This step is totally optional, but its also decently simple. Firstly, just decide where you want the ribbon to be on the lid. You don't have to draw where you want it over the paper, but I did. Then, use a gluestick to glue the ribbon onto the top portion of the lid and leave enough extra ribbon hanging over the edges for later. If your ribbon is like mine, it refuses to bend and stay that way with only glue stick glue. If it's not anything like mine, great! If it is, superglue will work to hold it down.

Essentially do the same thing for the box portion of the box, just turn it upside down and pretend it is the top of the lid. If you have two different colored ribbons (as I have shown), you probably will want to have the same color over the other one, both on the lid and the box.

Now you have a totally completed tiny gift box! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask. Also, so far, I'm thinking coins, small amounts of candy/mints, small fishing lures, miniature figurines, and shells would work well as small gifts to give in this, but I'd love to know any other ideas you have for this.