Thanks so much for the enthusiastic response to my "Best of Boxes" blog series! I am heartily enjoying putting together some cute and practical ideas to share with you. If you haven't yet left me a comment, I'd love it if you'd let me know you're lovin' all the free inspiration you've found on Song of My Heart! As always, you can find everything you see on my blog available to purchase at www.lyssa.stampinup.net and I'd be terribly honored to assist you with your papercrafting needs.
Today's project is a great little desktop message center that has a fun lid which doubles as a stand-up photo frame! Above, you can see it open, and here it is closed, below. Cute either way, and a great gift for a Daddy, a co-worker or a teacher.
Let's dive right in! You will need an 11x7 piece of cardstock, Sticky Strip, and a scoring tool such as the fab new Simply Scored board from Stampin' Up. Score your cardstock at 1,2,5 and6 inches on the short side.
Then rotate your cardstock 90 degrees and score at 1,2,3,4,9 and 10 on the long side.
Next, we're going to snip up to the scores and trim out the areas indicted above. Cut off the x'd out areas first, then make your snips on the dark lines. Below, you can see it after all the excess is trimmed away and the slices have been made:
If you're not sure you caught them all, no worries--when you are folding the box together, it will soon become obvious if you have left in an errant tab or two.
Start to form the box by folding in the appropriate tabs on the side where there were only two scores as opposed to four, as shown below. Use Sticky Strip so you don't have to worry about your box falling apart. This box has a lot of tension on it, so your adhesive must stand up to stress! If yours is not up to the task, please treat yourself to some of Stampin' Up's quality adhesive--you will kick yourself for trying to skimp on the cheapo stuff all these years.
Now we'll work on the other end of the box, which is actually just a hollow platform on which the lid/photoframe will rest when the box is open. Fold the end tabs in and secure as shown above, then fold the rest of the scores up and into the long part of the box.
If you did it right, it should look like this:
If it does, secure that down with Sticky Strip, too, so it won't budge. You should have a nice, sturdy, reinforced, snug little box with an open area that just fits a pad of regular 3x3 Post It Notes. Fun!
The lid is comprised of two parts--the folding mechanism and the photo frame piece. The mechanism piece is 6x3 inches and gets scored at 1 and 3.5 inches. The photo frame piece is slightly wide, at 3.5 by 5.25 inches.
The one-inch flap on the end of the mechanism piece gets adhered to the back of the box behind the platform area. The other score gets folded back on itself as shown above, and you'll adhere your decorated photo frame piece to only that area of the mechanism. I went back in and added a couple of brads on the platform to stop the photo frame from unintentionally sliding off the platform, too.
That's it! Super cute, eh? I mean the project... although the little monkey in the photo certainly qualifies! That's my Danny Boy, age three. I am still in love with this photo. If Dan grows up to be the most spoiled rotten boy in the whole world, it will be because his mother melted repeatedly in the gaze of those mischevious brown eyes. Dan has the most marvelous coffee-colored big brown eyes--heaven help us when he turns those on some sweet unsuspecting little girl someday!
Thanks for visiting my blog today, and spread the word if you would--Song of My Heart is coming up on a thousand followers on Pinterest and I'm in the mood for a Pinterest Party! Never "attended" one? It's super fun!! (Note: you will need to be a follower to participate, so if you haven't yet, click on the link in the sidebar and you'll be all set. It's just above my Facebook badge over there on the right.) Stay tuned for details, and check back for another episode in the Best of Boxes blog series shortly.
Awesome! I love, love, love this one! :)
Posted by: Lori B | 03/03/2013 at 08:53 PM
This would be so great for displaying school pictures on my husband's work desk! My sister-in-law just went back to work after having her first child.....I bet she wuld love this! Thanks for sharing, Lyssa. I get so many great ideas from you. I shared your blog with the ladies I stamp with each month.
Posted by: Nicole Steele | 03/04/2013 at 07:50 PM