Valley Oak Paper - Handmade greeting cards & gifts

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Candy Cane Carton

Cecilia Huster

I created this treat carton for an Instagram hop with a candy cane theme. The first time I used this Sizzix Seasonal House Gift Box Die Set, I didn’t use the included decorations at all. So I thought I’d do that in this week’s make. 

This is going to be a holiday make, so I’m using the tree and the wreath. I also want to use the cute shingles on the roof.

Preparing the Decorations

My treat box is going to be candy-cane themed, so I’ve cut the shingles out of dark red and pink cardstock. I’m going to alternate the colors. I also cut the outlines out of white glitter cardstock. I’m gluing the outlines to the rows of shingles. 

Moving on to the trees and wreaths, I’ve cut them all from Accent Opaque and two tones of green. I’m gluing the darker shade of green to the white cardstock. Then I’m offsetting the lighter color, so it looks as if the darker color is a shadow. I glue down three light strings in gold foil cardstock to each tree and 4-5 on each wreath. Next I add white and pink glitter hearts and flowers to both.

The doors are a bit more complex. First I’m gluing the white glitter outline onto some Accent Opaque for stability. Then I glue both doors to some copy paper. That gives me something to glue the pink glitter door panels to. Once the glue has dried, I’m fussy cutting the doors from the copy paper.

Next I’m stacking some Accent Opaque behind the very delicate Decorative Element A. 

Candy Cane Stripes 

To keep with the candy cane theme, I’ve cut lots of cardstock strips from colored and glittering cardstock. These range from ¼” to 1/16”.

Here’s the actual box, cut out of Accent Opaque. All I did was put two of the die cuts side by side and glue them together at the tabs. This treat box couldn’t be simpler to put together! But if I did this again, I’d use colored cardstock instead. Since I didn’t do that, and I didn’t want the side gables to be white, I glued thin pink cardstock to them. 

I’ve put printer paper along the top and folded under the bottom flaps, so I my candy cane stripes will only be glued to the sides of the treat box. 

I could have continued the candy cane stripes onto the roof and the bottom. But the more folds there are, the harder it gets. So I’ve decided to only use the strips on the walls. 

I’m just continuing to glue down the stripes, making sure not to leave any gaps. There’s no clever thought behind how I’m selecting strips. I just try them out and if I like how it looks, I glue them down. I’m almost done, so I’m cutting off the excess at the top and bottom. That’s always satisfying. 

I’ve folded under the tab that I’ll use to glue the house together later. That’s so I don’t accidentally stick my stripes to it. Ideally you can’t tell where the stripes begin and end. I want it to look seamless. 

To make it easier to fold the candy cane stripes, I’m scoring them in the corners. You can see that I’m struggling a bit. But the corners that were scored look better on the final product. 

I’m testing to see if I have enough stripes. I don’t, so I’m placing more stripes at the beginning of the pattern. The wide white glitter stripe was the final stripe I needed. 

Snow Drifts & Decorations

But before I glue the body together, I’m adding snow, in the form of thin, wavy strips of white glitter paper to the bottom edges of the box. I create the waves by fussy cutting and moving the paper around. I’m overlapping the snow drifts at the corners for a more realistic effect. 

Then I lay out the decorations, because I want to glue them to the sides of the box, while the box is still flat. 

I glue the wreaths to my doors. Then I’ve added foam tape to the back of my doors. It’s a little bit difficult to place them in the center of each side while the box is flat. On the other hand, I can be sure that things are stuck down properly. 

I also glue down the trees and one of the Decorative Elements A.

Roof

Now I can turn my attention to the roof. There are two types of shingle rows: 

  • One type starts and ends with a whole shingle. 

  • The other type starts and ends with a half shingle. 

I think it looks best if they’re alternating. I’m also alternating the colors. It helps to lay out the die cuts in the order you’re going to use them. 

For the shingles to “work” you have to start at the bottom. On the left side I’m starting with a pink whole-shingle row and on the right side I’m starting with a pink half-shingle row. Then I add a dark-red half-shingle row on the left and a dark-red whole-shingle row on the right. And I work my way up to the final, pink row at the top. 

More Snow Drifts

I’m also adding snow drifts in front of the doors and trees. The doors were easy. But for the trees I had to add three layers of Accent Opaque to the back so they’d lie flat.

Gluing the Box Together 

Now it’s finally time to glue the box together. I’m using my bone folder on the tab, so it forms a nice, square corner. Then I’m adding glue to the tab and placing the other end of the box onto it. I’m using three strong magnets to hold the seam while the glue sets up. 

Now I can add glue to the strips that cross the seam and glue them down.  

Next I create a bottom by gluing the bottom tabs together. It doesn’t really matter how you glue them together, unless you care about how the bottom looks. If you do, you could add a piece of cardstock to the bottom to disguise the seams. I didn’t bother. 

I did however make sure I had some magnets in the bottom while the glue set up. 

Structurally the only thing left was to add double sided tape to the top. I put it on both sides. In hindsight that was probably overkill. 

With the shingle roof I struggled a bit to get the two sides to meet up at the top. But I got there in the end. 

Finishing Touches

Then I adhered the final white glitter decoration. 

I finished up by adding two sentiment strips. These are reverse foiled Spellbinders sentiment strips from a Glimmer set called All You Need Sentiments. I have a little jar of those sitting on my desk. These are foiled in red. I just love the shine! 

That finishes my paper crafting project for today! I hope you enjoyed watching me create this little candy cane carton. I really like that the stripes hide the seams. And there’s plenty of interest with the decorated doors and trees.  

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