Self-closing Box

Hello, Crafters.

I hope everyone is safe after the South Coast here in the UK was battered by Storm Angus overnight. This morning I uploaded my Self-closing Box video onto YouTube. 

I decided to make this video because this is such an unusual but easy to make box.
I first made one of these in October last year for a class. 

Last week, when I was getting myself organised  for the craft show I was doing on Saturday, I decided to sort through my box of handmade boxes so I could have a display of gift boxes for sale and I found two self closing boxes. 

Last Saturday was a very successful day for selling gift boxes - I sold lots of them including my two self-closers.

I have another Christmas Fair on 1st December so I decided to make some more and then my thoughts went to a video!
 
Photograph 1 & 2 – this is the first box I made yesterday and I followed Frenchie’s – France Martin – instructions for sizes. 

I love the sentiment I’ve used on this box, which is from the Jar of Cheer Stamp Set and very appropriate for a gift box!

Photograph 3 – this is the second box I made, which is the same as the first one except I cut the squares of This Christmas Specialty Designer Series Paper (DSP) an eighth of an inch bigger i.e. 3 7/8” square as opposed to 3¾” square. 
 
I prefer the narrower gap the larger pieces of DSP leave – so it's down to you which effect you like best.

I made a mistake when cutting this box in as much as I mitred the top corner when I removed the small oblong! 

You can see my error at the top of the box on the right-hand side.

Another mistake I made on this box is that I used Real Red Ink and cardstock but I should have used Charry Cobbler! DOH!

Fortunately, this will be a lot easier to remedy! 

Photograph 4 & 5 – I used Fancy Frost Specialty DSP to make this box.

I heat embossed the same sentiment using Silver Embossing Powder on Whisper White Cardstock and layered it onto Silver Foil. 

I really love this box and think it’d be excellent for wedding favours, especially with the added bells' trinket!

Photograph 6 – as far as decoration is concerned, I don't think this box looks finished and I’m going to add more decoration to it today. 

However, the object of the exercise was to see how easy it would be to decorate the box with stamped or heat-embossed images, and would it be alright to leave it until after the scoring had been done. 

The answer is yes and it turned out to be very easy! 

As soon as I had finished the scoring, I wiped over the cardstock with my Embossing Buddy, and stamped the images using Versamark. 

Then I sprinkled Gold Embossing Powder over the stamped images and heat set.
Photograph 7 – this is the box I made during the video and I used Presents & Pinecones  DSP.
 
Photograph 8 – this is the box I made for my class a year ago!
 
The very nature of the design of this box does result in the base being very slightly  warped – you have not made a mistake! 

The box still sits on the table beautifully.

That's about it for today. I wish you a happy Sunday.

Until tomorrow, happy crafting.

JanB.