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.

Halloween treat boxes

A few weeks ago I made several of these Trick or Treat boxes for the children I work with. Due to events beyond my control,  I neglected to photograph them. So I have quickly knocked together a sample box and some  instructions to share with you.

 Materials for the box

A4 Black card 

1 piece of card 2inches by 3 1/2

Glue

For the panels

2 pieces of Black card 7 1/8 of an inch by  3 1/8th of an inch

 2 pieces of red card  3 1/4  by 7 1/4  inches

2 pieces Whisper white card 3 inches by 7 inches

post it note

inks 

yellow, red, orange and black.

Tools

scoreboard, paper trimmer, scissors, blending brushes,  daubers, Halloween stamps,  black die cuts,

Shrink plastic optional. Ribbon and thread. large circle punch  and  regular office style hole punch

Cut a section from the end of a sheet of A4 card so it measures 8 1/4 by 9 1/2 inches.

Score at 1/2 "    4"     4  1/2"     5"     8 1/2"   and   9 "

Turn the card around and on the short side score at 1". This will be the bottom of your box.

Snip off the small rectangle on the first half inch score line. (as in photo)

 Cut up  the score lines to the 1 "inch score line.     Cut a slither from each side of  the narrow middle flap and the end flap.  Removing a slither from these two small flaps will help to conceal them once the box is assembled. Which will give you a neater more professional finish.

Fold all the score lines accordion style.  The 4 1/2 inch and 9 inch  score lines should fold inward and the score lines either side will fold out. 

The single half inch strip is your glue tab. I like to apply the glue to the underside of this strip and fold it around the first half inch strip on the opposite end,  so that the edge of the join is in the centre fold.

You may like to apply the glue to the upper side of the  glue tab and marry up the sides. I don't think it makes  much difference whichever way you do it.  I just found it easier to wrap it round. Why not  do a dry run,  try both ways before you apply glue and decide which way  you prefer.

Once the side is stuck fast you can  complete the base. Fold over one of the wide flaps, then fold over the small flaps either side and secure with glue. Apply glue around the edges of the remaining flap and fold over and hold in place until the glue has dried. I like to stand the box up and use something like a rule or a length of wood  to press the base down from the inside, just to make sure all the layers are secure.

The box closure is just a piece of card 3 1/2 by 2 inches folded in half length ways. This piece of card can be any colour you like. I chose orange card and brushed a little red ink over it for some extra depth before I stamped the  cobwebs . While it was folded in half  I punched two holes for the ribbon to feed through.

I positioned the closure on the box and marked where the holes were with a pencil and punched the holes in the box.

Time to decorate the panels.  These were really quick and easy to do. I started by brushing yellow ink lightly on to  the lower section of my white card panels.  Once I had a light covering of ink  I placed a circle mask which I had punched  (on the sticky edge) from a post it note.

Then I continued to apply more yellow ink with a blending brush in a circular motion until I had even coverage across the lower and middle section of the panel.  Starting at the top of the panel I applied orange ink the same way, working my way down the panel and blending it in with the yellow.  I repeated  this process with the red ink.

I then took a tatty sponge dauber and applied black ink from the bottom of the panel working upwards in a flicking motion to give that ragged grass look.

All that was left to do  was stamp some spooky silhouette images in black.  I use black pigment ink, such as  Versacolour  for silhouettes as it is more opaque than dye based inks, the result being a more solid, intense image.

The skeleton on this box is a die cut. 

The Stamps I used are retired stamp sets from S.U.  called  Wicked cool,  Toxic treats and Monster munchies.

I added tags and charms to the side of the boxes.

The optional extra on these bags are the charms. I made a variety of charms for these boxes from shrink  plastic. (Shrinkies)

 They were made by stamping a fairly large image   onto  the shrink plastic using Stazon ink, then colouring the image with colouring pencils, punching or die cutting the image and heating the plastic with my heat gun until it shrinks.

These were then filled with mini chocolate bars and a variety of sweets before sealing the box with the ribbon.