These favor boxes are for my daughter’s preschool classmates, who will be celebrating her 5th birthday in class tomorrow with some yummy donuts! Each box is filled with two tropical fish sticker sheets, three fish erasers, a mini pencil, and some Sixlets candies.
I used the Lawn Fawn Fancy Box die and some 5.5″ x 7.5″ watercolor paper pads that I found at my local Jo-Ann’s. I believe this product line is relatively new – at least to my local store. The pad has 24 sheets in 8 different colors, so three sheets of each color. I chose the turquoise and blue colors because they looked the most like the colors of ocean water. These pads are priced very reasonably, so I was comfortable buying three pads in order to get the 16 boxes in those two colors.
You can see how the die fits perfectly on these 5.5″ x 7.5″ sheets!
I also cut out the included stitched oval from the top of the box so that I could create a little window. Since I was going to be cutting out 16 (one for each classmate, plus an extra for her younger brother), I attached the oval die to the main box die with some packing tape, lining it up with the grid ruler on my work surface. I then used my EK Success powder tool to remove the stickiness from any exposed tape, and this contraption ensured that all the cuts were exactly the same.
I cut down some transparency sheets to 3 1/4″ x 2 1/8″ and attached them to the back of the box top with some strips of 1/8″ Scor-Tape. This size allowed for some space between the oval opening and the scor-tape, as I thought I might want to tuck some images in there. It also gave me some wiggle room around the transparency so that I could still get a nice fold without it being in the way.
I used small pieces of 1/4″ Scor-Tape on the flaps, that when folded and attached, form the box bottom.
I set all these unassembled boxes aside & created the images I wanted to decorate them with. I used Lawn Fawn’s Mermaid For You stamp set, and stamped the images with MFT Black Licorice ink on Neenah 80 lb cardstock. I masked the bottom half of the mermaid before stamping the narwhal so that she looks as if she’s riding on the narwhal. This layered image is actually the same layout that I used for part of my daughter’s birthday invitations – you can see that post here: Mermaid Pop-Up Box Birthday Invitations. I also stamped the seaweed, coral, and fish images. I used my Copics & Spectrum Noir markers, as well as some dye inks, to color the images:
- Mermaid hair and skin: BG4, BG6 (hair) and E31, E33 (skin)
- Mermaid top and tail: V15 (top) and CG2, DG4, BT4 (tail)
- Narwhal: BG2, BG4 (body) and B05, B97 (tusk)
- Fish: R24, YR18, YR12, Y13, G05, B02, V17
- Seaweed: Hero Arts lime green and Hero Arts ombre lime to forever green
- Coral: Hero Arts pale tomato, Hero Arts dark quartz, Hero Arts tide pool, Recollections ombre pink to orange
I then used Scor-Tape and my Tombow mono dots adhesive runner to attach the images to the box and window, tucking the seaweed and coral behind part of the oval. Once all the images were attached, I folded along each score line and used my teflon bone folder to make sure it was creased well. I removed the backing off the Scor-Tape and adhered each flap to create the box shape. I then filled the boxes with goodies and folded the top of the box over, sliding the edge into the die cut slit. I think these turned out well & am already thinking of other ways to use this Fancy Box die!
