Making a box from a square of paper is relatively easy once you get your head around it. And much cheaper than buying a gift box. So here’s my short guide to making little boxes.
1. Take your square of paper. I used A4 size paper which I squared off by simply folding one corner to the opposite side and trimming off the excess.
While you are at it, fold the square diagonally in the other direction as well, and the point where the two folds cross is the centre of your square.
2. Fold each corner of the square into the centre. (Ignore the fold you can see on the bottom left of the photo – that’s there because I was reusing some paper that had been folded in an envelope, and isn’t part of the design.)
Then fold again so that the edge of your fold meets the centre line.
Unfold each corner before moving on to the next one.
You should end up with a piece of paper which has lots of little square fold lines marked out on it.
3. Make four cuts, two sets of two at opposite corners. Use the fold lines as a guide, making the cut two squares long.
4. Fold up the corners you haven’t cut, bringing the point into the centre. You now have two sides of the box, plus some support for the other two sides.
5. Then fold in the other two corners, so all of the points meet in the middle. And you’re done!
It shouldn’t need any glue to stay together, but free free to add a little dot under the corner points if you like – sometimes they just don’t want to stay put!
This white box was actually the base of my boxes, and the lids were made using coloured paper. To make the bases and lids fit together, the square for the bottom needs to be slightly smaller – I chop off about 1/4 inch from each side before folding, and that seems to do the trick.
So here is a finished box:
Perfect for those little gifts!
(This post was originally written in August 2011)
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