Paper Engineering

Six of us learned the art of making fancy boxes at an eat-and-craft pre-Super Bowl party. We stuffed dainty portions of cookies or candy in them to make the perfect Valentine’s Day gift. Of course, we ate them right away.

In retirement our friend, Helen Bauer has taken up several crafts that she teaches to Boys and Girls Club Members. These activities align perfectly to S.T.E. A. M. or Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics as students solidify and apply their knowledge of fractions and three-dimensional geometry.

Helen donated her time and all the materials to make these boxes and all the goodies to go inside of them to the Woodlake High School Foundation. Thank you, Helen. We had a great time.

The creative part of our box making experience involved fancy papers and stamped designs. I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on this subject. There are lots of those. Stampin Up (SU) demonstrators give away their templates, measurements, but the products can be costly if you get hooked like Helen.

If you want to learn more about making boxes online check out Pootles, Sam Donaldson’s website. For advanced boxers try Julie DiMatteo, the Paper Pixie. Helen also recommended Mary Fish at Stampin Pretty. Jeanie Stark at Just Stampin, and Susan Itell at Simple Stampin. I also found a Pinterest site by Nancy Bates.

Equipment Needed

• Instructions Type “stampin up youtube” into your search engine.
• Cutting /Scoring tool
• Tombow glue
• double-sided, narrow sticky tape
• scissors
• paper clips
• 80-110 lb cardstock
• DSP or Designer Series Paper
• Burnishing tool to crease edges – sharp fingernail works
• a pad of 11 x 18 graph paper
• something to put in the boxes as gifts

Our Boxes

Click LIKE if this brief post inspired you to do at least one of these things.

• Have fun with friends and/or family
• Work on your fractions
• Be creative
• Eat before you box, not during
• Take a class where the materials are provided.
• Laugh at your mistakes.

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