Coffin treat boxes

 I made these coffin treat boxes for Halloween . I know you can buy them pre made,  but I decided to have a go at making them myself. I started by down loading a template I found on line. but it was a bit smaller than I wanted and not as robust as I would have liked. 

So I drew up my own design several times. You may notice the coffins in the photo are all different sizes and depths.

 I am not going into complicated details on how I made the coffin template as I made three different ones in the end. But I will include a photo of one of my finished templates and a couple of photos showing how it goes together. 

There are quite a few variations of coffin templates online that you can print off and experiment with.

The depth of the base is 1  1/2 inches.  which was the width of my rule which reduced the amount of measuring I had to do.

I made the lid  1/8th of an inch longer than the base, but only  1/2 inch deep.

Once you've drawn  your coffin template, score all the lines and fold inward.

Once cut out I began by gluing the  bottom together, first by sticking the tabs together then gluing and folding the end over twice encasing the tabs. This gives a really neat finish to your project.  Do the same at the top end. 

Gluing the top and bottom first will help you form the shape of the sides .

Apply glue to the triangular tabs and adhere the sides together on the inside. 

Then add adhesive to all the outer panels and fold inwards to conceal the small tabs.

To decorate,  I die cut  three skeletons in ivory card and stuck  them all together in a pile and lightly inked the edges with brown ink.  I glued this one inside the coffin.

Then I cut  three black skeletons and stuck those together in a pile.

I rubbed some gold gilding wax over the bones and then adhered  it to the lid of the coffin. 

The R I P was done the same way.

The ornate trim on the sides of the shallow coffin were made by die cutting an ornate frame several times and layering them up to give it more dimension.

 Then trimming it down to fit each panel.

 Gild before adhering to the coffin.

My finished coffin measured 6 inches long  by about 3 inches wide at the widest  part.  You can see they hold quite a few treats.

The gold molding on the coffin below was made using  sugar craft molds and  Hearty air dry clay.

Because the air dry clay takes  about 24 hours to dry, it does make the process of decorating the coffins take longer.

It's best to make a batch of moldings  a day or two before and paint them black before you begin making your treat boxes.

 You can gild them in advance too.

If you  use moldings you'll need to make your coffin at  least 1  1/2 inches deep and your  lid 1/2 inch deep. 

 Another  option would be to make the lid  1  1/2 inches deep to completely cover the base, then  adhere the moldings to the sides of the lid.