Christmas in August - Gift Box Tutorial

Yesterday I thought about the packaging of my earrings. I mean, August is almost over and you can't be too early thinking about christmas and a nice way of wrapping your goodies.
I wanted something that looks good, protects the jewellery from damage and doesn't cost too much. Finally I stumbled upon a little origami box. I guess, many of you have seen this box somewhere over the web.
The good thing about is, that you can vary the size according of what you want to put inside. But I didn't like the fact, that it doesn't really look like a jewellery box. The walls are too high which also means that I'd have to use a bigger envelop for shipping. So I wrecked my brain to find a way to make this box but with nicer walls. And after some experiments it worked!


As I really like the result I thought I'd share my wisdom with you an and let you know how I made them. So here's what you have to do:

What you need:
Scissors
A Bone folder
A Ruler
2 square pieces of paper (One needs to be slightly smaller than the other)

What to do:
1. Remove the dog from your desk.

2. Take a piece of paper and cut a square. Use your guillotine if your have one (Mine was a christmas present my boyfriend gave me - The man knows what a girl wants!).
3. Fold from point to point in half. Then fold in half again from point to point. If you chose rather thicker paper or cardboard (as I did) use a bone folder or ruler for this.

4. Now take all four corners and fold to center.
5. Leave the corners closed and fold all sides to the center.
6. Open it. It should now look like this:
7. Turn the paper around. The four squares in in the center will be the lid of your box. I marked mine with a pen. Now cut towards the marked square as shown.
8. Take a pen and draw lines as shown on the sides that are parallel to the cuts you made.
9. Cut along the lines. The result should look like this:
10. Take the pen again and draw two lines on each of the remaining sides as shown. Cut along the lines.
11. Fold one side in half so it touches the square you marked before. Unfold again and to the same thing with the other three sides.

12. You made all the necessary folds and cuts! Now you have to put the box together. Therefor take one of the long sides and fold them as shown in the picture. Then do the same thing with the other long side. You should have two points touching inside and the short tabs sticking out.
13. Now fold the two tabs in to create the remaining sides. All points should be at the bottom of the box touching with no overlap. If the do overlap take a piece of masking tape and stick it in the center of the box. And that‘s it! You just finished the lid of your box.
14. To make the bottom of the box repeat steps 1-13. But remember that the paper needs to be slightly smaller (3-4mm) than the first one. È voilà - a pretty origami box with small walls! Perfect for all kinds of little gifts or the earrings by Smile Molecules. :-D

The Easter Post II

To finish my personal Easter roundup, I'd like to say a few words about the gift I made for my sister. In fact, the gift actually has a story.

It started on New Year's Eve 2009. We are not into New Year's Eve parties at all and decided to stay at home. From a I borrowed all ten seasons of Friends on DVD. We started with the first season on New Year's Eve and kept watching (last night we watched the last episode of season eight). In one episode in season seven, Monica bakes christmas candy. For baking she wears a pink apron. Apparently, Birgit fell in love with the pink apron. The scene was included into the intro of season seven so whenever Birgit saw the intro she started moaning about the pretty apron. I took a screen shot of the apron as it is shown in into of season seven:

I did some online research to find out whether someone else already noticed this apron and maybe knows where to get it. Of course, I wasn't successful. It came to my mind that it could not be too hard to sew an apron myself. I looked online for a suitable pattern and got lucky on Etsy. Jona Giammalva offered the almost perfect pattern. I gave it a try. I did everything I could to get Birgit out of the apartment for a weekend to have enough time and space to make the apron. I got some pink vintage fabric from my mum, but with now proper table to cut the fabric and a horrible pair of scissors this turned out to be rather challenging. Making the bias tape turned out to be an even greater challenge. Did I mention that I have no real experience in sewing and tried to do this on my own? The bias tape was meant to be rather slim and the fabric proofed to be pretty stiff. I'm also not too great in ironing. I think my little Ikea ironing board is only meant to be used to iron sleeves. I don't have any larger ironing board. So I set on my cold floor with the tiny board and the stiff fabric and tried to produce a halfway acceptable bias tape. After about three or four hours I gave up. I called my mom, stuffed all the pieces of the apron in a big bag and announced to come over as soon as possible to have her help me. The slim bias tape really freaked me out. Actually I did not even want a slim bias tape. Remember, I said "almost" perfect pattern?
When I came home and showed the pieces and pattern to my mom I decided that the bias tape has to become wider. Actually, I just wanted my mom to give me a little help and show me how to do it. Plans were changed though. We got a phone call and suddenly we expected nine more persons for our Easter brunch. I kinda panicked because I wanted everyone to have one of my knitted egg cozies and so far I had only finished four of them. So my mom took over the sewing of the apron while I sat there to knit some more egg cozies (in the end I only had seven of them).
In the end, Birgit's gift is handmade. Not really by me though. I am a little upset about that, but I'm determined to try it again some other time. Nevertheless, I believe she really likes her new apron. She can actually wear both sides. Ok, it does not really look like Monica's apron, but it is pretty close:

Actually, the reverse side looks more like the original apron, but I can't really find a photo of it. 

I think now I really rounded up my Easter Holidays.