Turn those boring chocolate heart boxes into a work of art with some basic craft supplies! After the chocolates are gone use them for a gift box! These were seriously so fun to make. I could have made way more but I had to stop myself and get this blog post finished! These embellished boxes are pretty self explanatory by looking through the photos but I'll point a few things out here and there.
First you need some heart boxes, kind of obvious I guess. I had a couple saved at my house and bought a few too. Tip - if you would like to get some of these boxes to have on hand pick some up the day after Valentine's Day when they are 50% off or more!
Word of warning if you are buying boxes mainly for the actual heart shaped box, not for the chocolates. Be careful of the plastic molded ones like the one below. I wanted 1 more large box and got this one at Wal-mart I think for $3.00 but it won't make a good gift box because the plastic molding is all one piece so you can't remove it. I'm not sure if all the plastic heart boxes are this way but just a heads up.
You can use just about any type of creative items to dress up your boxes. You could use gift wrap or scrapbook paper and call it a day or keep on embellishing. From my craft arsenal I gathered some wrapping paper, scrapbook paper, chalkboard contact paper, stickers, bakers twine, washi tape and some small clothespins. I never got to use the small clothespins because I ran out of boxes to dress up but they would have been cute to glue to the box and put a little love note or To/From tag in the clothespin.
At first I thought of just dressing up the outside of the boxes to make them a little cuter with leaving the chocolates inside. Then I figured they would be good to recycle and use for gift boxes for Valentine's Day, Birthdays, Engagements, Weddings and etc. presents. I was really surprised how many different items I could fit in the boxes since they are only about 1" tall. As you scroll through the photos below you'll see I ended up making some themed boxes. The items below came from various sources (mainly Target, Wal-mart and Michaels) and some items I had on hand. Gift cards, Disney or other amusement park tickets would be fun to put in these boxes too. You might need to take some of the items out of the packaging in order to fit in the box.
To get started take the top/front of the box and flip it over and trace it onto the back of the paper you would like to use. Cut out the paper heart and attach with glue or double sided scotch tape to the front of your box.
After the new paper is attached you can embellish to your hearts content! For the box below I used striped wrapping paper, white card stock, bakers twine and washi tape. The heart balloons were inspired by the artwork I made in honor of Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Confession time...I have many rolls of washi tape but have never used them! Yes, that's grounds for some type of crafting offense I'm sure...please don't turn me into the craft police! ha ha A couple weeks ago I came across these beautiful cards made by Omiyage. I liked the technique they used to make shapes by overlapping the washi tape so that's what I did to make the heart balloons on this box. If you are like "what the heck is washi tape", go here and Omiyage explains what it's all about. You can also purchase washi tape from their shop here. The bakers twine is from The Twinery. Oh, I made a heart template that you can download towards the bottom of this post. The template is a sheet of graduated sized hearts ranging from 1" to 4".
This box became a craft themed gift box. Some of the items include: ribbon, mini paper punches, glitter, pencils, erasers, washi tape, heart post-it notes, fun edge scissors and a little candy!
For those that don't know, I suffer from Hello Kitty addiction. I don't know if there is a cure, but I really don't want to be cured! ; ) The 5 year old in me just takes over when I see Hello Kitty and I get all excited and sometime start clapping when it's super cute! (yes I really do that!) So while I was staring at my pile of heart boxes the HK face entered my mind and out came this box. I used white & yellow card stock, black contact paper (you can just use black card stock, I had the black contact paper in front of me so that's what I used) and red polka dot ribbon for the bow.
What's inside? Yep, HK items! HK keychain, bracelet, magnet clip, lipgloss and candy!
Ok, this one is my FAVORITE!! I LOVE hot air balloons. I've been fascinated by them since I was a kid. I wanted to make a box with some dimension and a hot air balloon is what came to my mind. I used scrapbook paper and bakers twine for this box. I cheated and made my clouds in Illustrator with the wording. I have horrible hand writing and didn't want to ruin my design with it so I used the computer!
Here's a quick little tutorial on how to make the hot air balloon. Trace and cut out 3 heart shapes (you can download a heart template down further in this post), fold them in half, glue or use double sided scotch tape to attach them to each other. There will be a half heart shape left on each side to glue or tape down to your box. Pretty easy!
This box became a bakers theme. Heart shape cookie cutter, sprinkles, mini cupcake liners and candy are what landed in this box.
To be honest, I'm a girly girl designer and my mind just doesn't think in boy land. I noticed I didn't have anything representing a boys theme and all I could think was Vroom, Vroom! This was suppose to be a basic car theme but it turned into a Disney's Cars theme. I was trying to find some basic car stickers with traffic signs but couldn't find anything but Disney's Cars stickers. This box I used red card stock, Cars stickers and road - looking washi tape. I realize you might not be able to find road -looking washi tape, in place of that just use strips of black card stock and use white chalk or White Out to make the white dash lines.
In the box...Disney's Cars Sticker Tape roll (found at Wal-mart in the greeting card section), match box car, erasers and candy.
This next one I really didn't like how it turned out and I wasn't going to include it but decided to anyways. Do you ever have an idea and it's so cool in your head then you go to create it and you're like this does not look how it did in my head? Well, that's what happened with this box. Chalkboard art seems to be all the rage and I wanted to create something with black chalkboard contact paper I recently bought. I wanted to get some colored chalk markers but couldn't find them so I just used regular chalk. It just seemed to be hard to write/design on this paper. It didn't take the chalk the same as a real chalkboard. I tried to use colored chalk but it just ended up looking almost white. So this is what I ended up with. I think I'll stick to digital/faux chalk art designing and skip the real chalk art!
This box is for the fashion glamor girl! Heart socks, nail polish, lip glosses and candy!
This last one is another favorite, it's only made from various scrapbook papers. I turned to one of my Pinterest Boards for this paper rose technique. I was so happy to use something I pinned for once! You can find the tutorial to make these roses here. They really are super easy and fun to make.
I thought this box would be cute to give to a best girlfriend with their favorite lip stick or lip gloss and a little candy!
These 3 are my favorite. I just love creating with paper!
I hope these spark your own creativity to dress up those boring chocolate heart boxes!
Here's your FREE heart template that I mentioned earlier in this post. Just click the photo below and you will be able to download and PDF file of hearts to print out and use for your craft projects.
Have fun crafting!! Linked up at: I Heart Nap Time, Lil' Luna, Somewhat Simple, Tatertots & Jello, Today's Creative Blog & A to Zebra Celebrations
