How to make a special giftbox?

I have to admit: this is a tutorial that involves a lot of work. I recycled a pre-made box to reduce the amount of work. But you can also used recycled cardbord and assemble the box yourself of course.
Because these boxes take so much time to make, I usually only make them for very special occasions or people. As far as I know, all of them have kept the box the gift came in. To use every day or sometimes. I just love the thought of something handmade being cherised.

Here is what you need:
Handmade paper, thin cardboard, PVA glue, box, pencil, eraser, scissors,

glue brush, scoring tool, cutting knife, doublesided tape, thick transparant plastic, ruler, something small but fun to put inside the boxHold the side of the lid on the edge of the paper and draw a thin line.
Do this for 2 sides.

Place the lid against the thin line again and put the box down. Trace the bottom of the box on the paper.

Add the same lines on the other two sides.
It should look like this now.

Cut out along the lines.

Take the lid and put the thing you want in there on the inside
and draw a border around it.

Cut out the border with a cutting knife.

Put glue on the paper.

Place the lid on top of the paper.

Fold the paper around the lid.

Press the paper with a scoring tool closely to the edge of the lid.

Cut the middle part with a cutting knife so that
you will be able to fold over the paper to all sides.

Put glue on the sides and fold over the paper.

The lid should look like this now.
Let it dry for a bit.

Do the same with the bottom of the box.

Now cut a piece of sturdy transparant plastic to put over the hole in the lid.

Put doublesided tape along the edge of the hole.

Place the plastic on top of the doublesided tape.

Now we will make a box for the finding you want to put in there. Use the left over cardboard you cut out as a mould and depending on
how thick your finding is, you add some flaps to it.

Score the lines with a scoring tool so that it's easier to fold over.

Put glue on the cardbord.

Glue it onto the paper and cut it out.

Attach some tape to the edges to make a box.

Put doublesided tape on the outside flaps.

sorry for the very bad picture...

Put the finding inside the box.

Press the box onto the inside of the lid.

The inside of the lid looks dreadful so we'll put some paper of that too. Place the lid over a piece of paper and cut about 1cm around.

Then cut some lines toward the middle of the tiny box inside the lid.

Put glue on the inside of the lid.

Oops, I forgot to cut away the corners which makes it harder to glue,
so I do it quickly while glueing!
Press the paper firmly onto the inside of the lid.

That looks better already.

Ready! :)This mighty cute sales fairy will go into the box.

I made this sales fairy especially for the European Streetteam's new game. This fairy will sprinkle her fairy sales dust in Turkey as StarOfTheEast was able to catch her.
I caught this fairy & she already worked her magic! :)
Read more on the Sales Fairy game on the Handmade blog of the European Streetteam.

And while I was making boxes, I made some more for future gifts.

How to use a metal letter stamp set with clay?

In July, I saw the new exchange program on Totally Tutorials. The idea behind it is that suppliers offer supplies in exchange for a tutorial. As you all know, I love making tutorials & I love supplies so I didn't have to think twice. I applied for the nice set of 1.5mm letter/number stamps from Evie's Tool Emporium. They arrived very soon after she decided who was going to get them, but I was so busy preparing for the craft fairs that I didn't have much time to play around with them. Well, time has come to show you what I did with them...
I used polymer clay (Fimo) to create gift tags from them. I decided to try white and black and see what the results were.
Here is what you need:

Metal stamping letters/numbers set, polymer clay, acrylic paint, flat wooden sticks, ceramic tiles or glass, cookie cutters, rolling pin, embossing tool or fat needle, paper plate, paintbrush and a cloth.

Take a piece of polymer clay and soften it while kneading.

Put the flat wooden sticks on the ceramic tile (makes it easier to transfer to the oven) and roll with the rolling pin over the clay so that it's nice, flat and even.When you rolled out a piece, lift it up carefully and
transfer it to another tile so you can roll out more little clay slabs.

Punch with your cookie cutters, figures out of the polymer clay slab.

I made two sets in black and white clay.

Before you stat using your letter stamp set, wipe it off with a soft cloth. The stamps are a bit oily to make sure they don't start to rust.Before you start stamping, try your stamp on a sample of Polymer clay.
This way you know how hard you have to press the stamp to get result and it will also be good to see if you're not holding the stamp upside down.

Hold the metal stamptool as straight as possible and press lightly into the clay.

Here is what I stamped...

If you click on this picture below, you will see better what I stamped on the clay.

Take your embossing tool or needle to punch a hole in the clay.

Carefully take the piece of clay off the ceramic tile and punch with your embossingtool or needle on the backside of the clay so that the hole can be used.

Preheat your oven to 110°C or read the instructions on the packaging of the polymer clay you are using.

Put the ceramic tiles with the clay pieces in the oven for 30 minutes
and let it cool down afterwards. It's ready to use when they feel cold.

Put some acrylic paint on a paper plate and paint the sides and front of the clay.

Let it dry for a while.

When it's dry, rub it with a damp cloth
so that most of the paint will come off again.

The harder you rub, the more paint will come off.

Here is another example with gold acrylic paint. Paint it.

Rub the paint away with a damp cloth.

Ready!

Here are some results on the white and black clay. On the white ones, the paint doesn 't look really good I think but I love the black ones. On the white ones, the paint just looks a bit dirty...
It obviously is best to use this technique with colored polymer and contrasting paint.

I made a little package with very thin metal wire. I twist the wire around a needle to create a tiny spiral.

I used chrochet thread to wrap double around the package.

You can also make it an ornament.

Wrap lots of chrochet thread around the package and add the clay label.

Only wrap thread around one edge and attach the clay gift tag.

In case you have a hard time getting the thin thread
through the little hole, here's a tiny trick that makes it super easy...
Cut a small piece of metal wire.

Fold the metal thread in half and put the thread in between.

Stick the metal thread through the little hole of the clay.

See how easy it is, you don't even need glasses for that! :)

I love the white, untreated gift tags best, they kind of look like porcelain clay...

There are lots of possibilities with this metal letter stamp set and I can't wait to use it for my ceramic work too. If you like to try it for yourself, don't hesitate and order a set of your own at EviesToolEmporium. I garantuee you lots of pleasure with it! :)
Michele from EviesToolEmporium also gave away a metal letterstamp set to a jewelry designer who used it to stamp metal. She made a little video montage and it's awesome, you can find that tutorial here.
If you like to receive all the gifttags that I made for making this tutorial, please leave a comment & you'll automatically enter this give-away. :) There's many more then you see in the pictures!
The winner will be announced next week.
Congrats Evylyn of Sumikoshop! I'll be sending out the gift tags soon! :)

Make sure to check out Totally tutorials on a regular basis for lots of fun DIY projects.