Halloween Countdown - Day 4

We celebrated my daughters 1st birthday this weekend with a Halloween-themed bash. It was a great party and we were happy to celebrate the special day with family and friends.

These are the cupcakes I baked for the party and here is a hilarious photo of my daughter eating the cupcakes. I guess this is that quintissential first birthday party picture with the kid shoving the cake into her mouth. It was really funny though. Not sure if I'm going to get that orange icing out of her clothes though...

Tonight's project is a really simple and classic box - the 2,4,6,8 box. This is a great Halloween treat box because you can get two boxes per 8.5x11 sheet of paper and it fits a perfect amount of candy. You can decorate these however you want or even leave them plain in an assortment of Halloween colours. I like lime green, orange, purple and black...

Take a piece of 8.5x11-size cardstock and cut in half so you have two sheets of 8.5 x 5.5" cardstock. Score lines at 2, 4, 6 and 8 inches then turn 90 degrees and score at 1.5 inches.

Cut out the tiny corner piece and cut the short length up to the horizontal score line.

You can decorate the box however you would like. Add stamped images, patterned paper, a background stamp, glitter or whatever catches your fancy. I like to add a bit of texture to my boxes by running them through my Cuttlebug embossing folders. Its best to pick a folder that has a repeatable pattern. This is a new Halloween themed folder.

Keep sliding the folder down until you've covered the cardstock. Make sure that you orient your paper in the folder the way it will be in the final project. The horizontal score line will be at the bottom of the box. After you've finished embossing and/or decorating, fold along the remaining score lines.

I decided to add some colour to the box by putting a band of contrasting Halloween themed patterned paper across the top of the box. The paper is 1.5" wide but 9" long. Make it slightly longer than the box because it will shrink up a bit with the score lines. Glue it to the top of the box and fold along the scorelines again.

You can leave the box enclosed or you can add a viewing window to the front to see the treats inside. I find that the Stampin' Up! punches work perfect for this. If you bring the punch in from the side where the very short tab is (the one you cut the notch from), the punch will be almost perfectly placed in the centre of the panel. Use any punch you like - circle, square, tag, etc. Do not throw away the negative because you will use that later.

Add a piece of clear transparency behind your punch space to make a window. Then use a strip of red sticky tape along the narrow tab, fold the box around itself and stick it together.

Using a couple of additional pieces of sticky tape, fold the box bottoms up and stick them together.

Now that the box is formed, pinch the front and back together, gently folding in the sides of the box. You can put packaged candy directly inside the box, but if you are using loose candy as I did, I would suggest that you put them in a food safe pinch bag. A 2x3-inch bag will fit perfectly in this box.

You can use a hole punch to punch a couple of holes in the top of the box through all layers. I find that this works best with a Crop-o-dile because it can be tough to get through all the layers of cardstock. I add a couple of eyelets at this point as well.

With the leftover negative from your window, make yourself a tag and attach it to the holes at the top with a coordinating ribbon. And you're done!