I've been adding quite a few of these box cards to my silhouette shop recently. They aren't hard to put together but there are a few steps. Each of my boxes are different so you will need to make adjustments to this tutorial based on the type of box you have purchased.

A couple of notes about these boxes. They aren't true boxes in that they do not have a bottom. Once you have put them together, you should be able to fold them flat. Some of the boxes come with flaps along the edges (like the whale box) and some come without (like the ice cream box).

Here's how to put it together:

1. Cut out the svg files. Glue accent pieces to the outside of the box. Note that most of these boxes should have a large accent piece on the back of the box AND the inside of the box. Usually you just need to cut the piece twice but on some of the designs the inside is different than the accent piece on the outside.

2. Glue the flap on the main piece to the back of the box to create the main box.

It should look like this:

3. Glue on all the accent pieces to the inside pieces (for example, the whale on the back piece shown here). Then fold on glue flap forward and one glue flap backwards.

4. Next glue the flaps into the box. Space the different pieces inside evenly. Most of these boxes come with 2-3 inside pieces. You can also fold the box flap to glue down the box pieces. Some of the boxes come with a single inside piece and a couple of little accessories (usually an object on a stick) that you just glue directly to the box.

And that's it! It's a cute card or fun gift idea!

Hope you have fun making these!

Carina

I probably redesigned this basket a half a dozen times but I think it was worth it! The end result just makes me smile!

These little baskets are 3D and take a bit of time (and creativity) to put together. Stick a little gift card in it for a friend or use it for home decor! These baskets DO NOT fold flat (they have a full bottom on them).

I hope you get a chance to make one of these darling little baskets! You can fill them as "full" as you want with the addition of little "bits" that can be glued in the front or back. You also have the option of making this front and back (by gluing the accessories —like flowers or strawberries) to the front and back of each piece).

Here's how to put these together:

1. Cut out the svg files.

2. Glue the accent pieces to the main box. This includes the side squares and the "lid" accent pieces.

2. Next glue down all the embellishments (like the strawberries or flowers) to the inside pieces (shown below in kraft paper). You can pop dot them but because mine was full, I chose to simply glue them down. Add any embellishments (like diamonds to the centers of the flowers) at this point. Note: You can finger press anything at this point to add dimension. You'll see that with the flowers, I chose to only glue the centers and finger press the petals to give the flowers more depth.

3. Next, you'll need to glue in the tabs. You can see I got a little picture crazy with this because it's a little hard to explain. I like gluing in the center piece (with the handle) first. I fold one tab forward and one tab backwards. You can see in the photo below, I glue that handle piece to the center of one of the sides of my box.

I then glue the front piece on (as shown below). I glue the flap going forward like the handle piece.

I then glue the back piece on. You'll notice that I try to evenly space them.

Fold up the box and see how you are doing on your spacing. This will also help you gauge where to glue the opposite side flaps on.

4. Glue the inside pieces to the opposite side of the box. I like to just glue one of the flaps first. I started with the first inside piece (you can see in the photo below). I placed hot glue on it (you can use any kind of adhesive you want) and then positioned it to the opposite side of the box.

It should look like the photo below.

I finish gluing the other two flaps onto the opposite side of the box.

5. Once I have all the middle pieces positioned, I then glue the rest of the box together.

From the top, it will look like this (see photo below).

6. There may be several accent pieces in the file you have. For example, there are "strawberries on a stick" in the strawberry basket file as well as some greenery. I placed the strawberries randomly in the box and glued them to the front of the box and behind the inside pieces. I glued the greenery to the front of the box. For the flowers, I simply added some flowers to parts of the box to give it a more "full" look.

The point is to add some depth to the boxes contents.

Hope you have fun making one!

Carina

There are lots of weddings happening around me, and I was inspired to make some cake! Some Silhouette Cake of course!

These layered cakes are all put together about the same way (with some slight deviations based on design). You can mix and match the designs (like using the butterflies with the scallop shapes of the flowers) because all of the cakes are made exactly the same size.

The crazy thing is that these are even cuter in real life! I think we might have to leave these out in the office for a while to enjoy them!

Check the bottom of the post for links to specific designs you can find in my Silhouette Shop!

Here's how you put these sweet treats together:

1. Cut out all the svg files.

2. Layer with adhesive (or pop dots as shown in my picture) the bottom mats with the small one on top of the larger one.

3. Put together the main form of the "cake" by gluing the boxes together. Put adhesive on the glue flaps to form the sides of the box.

4. Place the matching "top" to the box and glue down the sides.

You should have three (or more) boxes finished.

5. Glue the boxes to the mats in order of largest to smallest.

6. Finally, embellish the cake the the decorative items that come with the cake. I like a diagonal design but you can place them any way you want! For the topper, I try to use the biggest item (like the cut out butterfly) or gather together several of the same items (like 4 flowers all together). I used embellishments (like little diamonds or pearls to help accessorize).

And that's it! You've made a darling layered cake! Hope you had fun making it!

Carina

(Links available as the product becomes available)

This week among my Silhouette releases are mobiles. They do take some time to put together but they are really cute and make the cutest party and home decor items!

I use a lot of solid papers for this project and was loving my hot glue gun because it made putting it altogether quick. The "umbrella" piece at the top can be used for more than just the mobile (size down for umbrella drinks or other party items).

Here's how to put this together:

1. Cut out the pieces as shown in the file.

2. Glue all the accent pieces to the top of the "umbrella". (Note you can do this between Steps 4 and 5 as I show in the photos as well.)

3. Fold on the scorelines of the "umbrella" and place a ribbon with a knot on the end of it in the center hole. If you want to place hanging icons from the center ribbon, leave a long tail.

4. Glue the flap of the "umbrella" together with the ribbon in the center.

5. Put together the "object" you will be placing on the mobile. For example, if you have the teddy bears, assemble each teddy bear individually. If you have the floral mobile, you can finger press the petals and make each flower individually. For my mobiles, I had 4 ribbons—the center ribbon, and three shorter ribbons. On each of the short ribbons, I hung two objects each. For the center, I hung 3 objects. So that is a total of  9 objects, right? But you have to DOUBLE that number, because you will want to make each object DOUBLE-SIDED since they will be floating. So I cut out 18 objects in total for each of my mobiles. Feel free to change up the number and size of your objects. (e.g. the scallop frame mobile only uses 3 frames so I only cut out 6 pieces in total).

If you left a long tail for the center ribbon, you can add you objects directly to that center ribbon. If you did not, you can always easily knot another piece of ribbon to the center knot. Place two or three objects on this center ribbon and space carefully. Glue one side of the object onto the ribbon first, then sandwich the ribbon by adding a second object.

6. Add the other ribbons with either tape or hot glue. Be sure to space them into thirds if you are using three more ribbons. Add objects to these ribbons as well.

And that's it! It's a lot of cutting and gluing but makes for an awesome project! Hope you have fun making these!

***NEW: Tutorial for putting together the airplane in the Airplane Mobile

I added this little tutorial because putting together the airplane (while not complicated) is a little hard to see in the photos. So here is how you put these together.

1. After cutting out all the pieces, you will want to add all the accent pieces as MIRROR IMAGES. Then fold the tail wings out. You can see that the tails on both cut out pieces are folded out to opposite sides. You need to put everything on as a mirror image so that you have accent pieces on BOTH sides of the airplane.

2. To place the planes on the ribbon, you will sandwich the ribbon between the two planes. Glue together the sides without the accent pieces.

3. You can add the wings at this point (with the ribbon sandwiched between the two planes) or you can do this before you add the plane to the ribbon.

Here's a final look at the airplane from the top view.

Hopefully this helps you put together the airplane mobile!

Carina

PS. Other goings on at CGInc and ML : MiniLou Kickstarter Video, MiniLou Online Shop Opening, Release of my CartaBella line Circus Party

Links to my mobiles in the Silhouette Store

I know so many of my posts these days are Silhouette tutorials. I hope that they are so helpful for those of you that are "making" with your machines.

This cute little box is created with an "envelope" folding flap. Here's how to put it together.

1. Cut out the silhouette files.  The main body of the box I cut out in white and the flap in kraft paper. The accent papers are in pink.

2.This box is double enforced—that is, I created it so that the sides of the box are stronger by doubling up the paper. So you have to fold all the score lines on the box and then glue down the extra flaps. Do this to all four flaps.

3. Then put glue on the glue flaps and attach the sides of the box together to finish the box.

4. To create the flap, glue down the accent pieces to the main flap. Be sure to match up the small, half circle notches on the accent paper and the flap.

5. Fold the flap around the box and attach using the notch. You can use a clear sticker or use the notch to hold the flap together.

And that's it! There so many uses for this cute box from favor boxes, small gifts, or even as a card.

Happy creating!

Carina

I've had a lot of questions about my Metal Star Accents and in particular if I was going to make a base for this. So here they are! I have a 5 pointed star and a 6 pointed star made completely from paper! You can use the accents on them but will need to resize them to fit your star (The metal star accents were created to be used with a METAL CRAFT STAR that you can purchase from your local craft or scrapbooking store. They will need to be resized to fit on these paper stars.) If you are looking for links to all of these products, I have put them at the end of this post. You can also check out my Silhouette shop for more products like this.

Putting together these paper stars is pretty easy. You can, of course, sized down your star. The photo to the left shows you how large the star is if you cut it at it's original size in the file. It requires a Cameo (12 x 12 papers) but if you size it down you could make a smaller star on your Portrait.

Here's how to put it together:

1. Cut out five pieces of the same sized triangle shape on your machine for the 5 pointed star and six pieces of the 6 pointed star.

2. Fold at all the score lines. (Use the photo here as as guide).

3. Glue the flap of the star and connect it to another point of the star.

4. Continue adding points to the star until you come to the first point.

Note: If you plan on adding the metal star accents, I would do this at the 2nd step while the star is flat. You can use modge podge for a glossy look or simply use a hot glue gun, pop dots, or a glue stick to put on the metal star accents.

Hope you have fun making these!
Carina

I've been loving the last few weeks of projects I have made for my Silhouette Store. I managed to finally finish Gilmore Girls  for the second time and catch up on Community while making this last batch of cards.

This week I've added more Shadow Box cards to the shop but these are (drum roll) sliding cards! (If you are looking for the folded cards tutorial, see the blogpost below).

These fabulous cards allow you to slide off the shadow box part of the card. You can write a message directly on the shadow box or a secret message on the sliding card behind the shadow box. They are easy to put together and SOOOO cute!

Here's a little 19 second video so you can see how these little cards come together.

Here's the tutorial:

1. Cut out all the pieces in your svg file.

2. (See below) Fold the sleeve piece that has a glue flap. Glue the flap to the opposite side of the sleeve together to create a place for the card to slip through.

2. Once the sleeve is glued together, use it as the base of your shadow box. Glue down any “colored” objects first to the layers. For example, center and glue the clouds on top of the cloud shapes. You can use pop dots for these as well. You can see in the elephant and giraffe example above I used pop dots on the animals but glued the clouds flat.

3. Use pop dots to layer the pieces so that the card piece with the thinnest outside layer is on top and the thickest at the bottom. Place pop dots on corners and middles to keep the card stable. (See photo in previous blogpost to see how I place the pop dots.)

4. Once the shadow box is finished, slide in the "card." (See photo to the left.)

5. Glue the accent pieces to the outside of the card. (see below.)

Helpful Tips:
+ For small or intricate cuts, I put my speed at 9 on my Silhouette Cameo instead of the typical 3. This is especially useful for the "baby" wording on the onesie card.

+ The bow on the cake card is not complicated. All you have to do is use the two score lines nearest the ends of the bow and pull them in to match to the middle score line. Use the tiny, thin piece to  wrap the center of the bow. I used hot glue to make sure everything dried quickly and held together nicely. I also placed the bow on the second tier of the shadow box.

+ You can use any color cardstock for these shadowbox cards. I've used kraft paper in all my examples but white, black, gray, and any solid color would work wonderfully for a unique take on these cards.

+ These cards are sized for a gift card. You will need to tape in the gift card or hot glue the sliding card portion to create a pocket.

Hope you have fun making these and have someone special to send them to!

Happy Cutting!—Carina

(Links will be available on March 23, 2015)

The new shadow box cards I have in my silhouette shop are amazingly simple to put together. Instead of glue flaps, the shadow is simply created by pop dots. Pop dots can be found at your local craft store for about $2.99-$3.99. The effect you get with this little guys is fantastic!

All of the cards are meant to fit into an A2 envelope with the finished size being about 4 inches x 5.5 inches. It is a little smaller than the traditional A2 sized card (4.25 inches x 5.5 inches) but it is to compensate for the size of the shadow box and helps get it into the envelope.

All of my cards are FOLDED, which means you can place a message on the inside of the card. Of course, you can also forgo the pop dots and glue all of the layers down for a cute layered effect without the shadow.

So here are the simple instructions:

1. Cut out all the pieces in your svg file.

2. Glue down any "colored" objects first. For example, center and glue the bunny to the piece with the bunny shape. You can use pop dots for these as well. In my examples, I glued them flat (without shadow).

3. Use pop dots (see image below) to layer the pieces so that the card piece with the thinnest outside layer is on top and the thickest at the bottom. Place pop dots on corners and middles to keep the card stable.

And that's it! Simple but elegant! Look for more of these designs this coming week!