I have a friend who's way into kids' cereals, and I thought it would be fun for her birthday to give her a gift wrapped in a cereal box.
But rather than just clear out a box of cereal, open the top and stuff the gift in, I thought it would be better to actually make a real gift box--the kind with a bottom and top. Since cereal boxes are about the same size as those collapsable white gift boxes, I thought they'd do the job.
I started with two identical boxes--for this project the boxes have to be the same size. I'm not much into sweetened cereals, but I did try this one--you know, in the interest of science or something. They're a little too good. You don't even need milk, especially when you're standing in the kitchen shoving it in your face straight from the box.
Before you start cutting, you'll have to re-glue the open top flaps. I did this with PVA (polyvinyl acetate, or bookbinding glue), but you can use any white glue, including heavy craft glue.
Tape the flaps closed until they dry. I used low-tack artist tape to hold them in place.
I cut the front from one box and the back from another. Below, I've drawn cutting lines around the front of the box with a Sharpie, about 1/2 an inch from the edge. I did this because I wanted to preserve the front and back for something else, which I'll reveal later. I took my craft knife and, folllowing the lines, cut out the front and back panels. If you don't want to preserve them, you can cut an 'X' across the top from corner to corner, and skip the next step.
Here's what it'll look like when you're done. You don't have to be super neat, but be careful not to cut yourself, or cut through the edge of the box.
Carefully make a diagonal cut to the edge of the box on all four corners.
Place a metal ruler over the excess cover flap on one side and cut it off with a craft knife. This is a bit awkward, and one of those times you wished you had a third hand, but it's doable. I'm right-handed, and I brought the blade down from the top to the half-way point, then turned it and brought it from the bottom. You can cut the flaps with scissors, just make sure you make neat cuts. Do this on all four sides.
At this point you may see that the top needs a bit of re-gluing, and there may be a couple of loose flaps. Glue everything down well and let dry.
On the box bottom, make diagonal score lines on the long sides of the box. Mark 2" (5 cm) from the corner and draw a pencil line, or just make a mark. Score the line with a scoring tool or bone folder. You don't have to do this on the box top; if you're really stuffing the box you might need to, but usually just scoring the box bottom will suffice.
The box bottom should be able to fold like this. Collapsing the bottom box is what allows it to fit into the same-size top.
Now you're ready to fill it! Here's the scarf I made my friend. It fit perfectly.
Tie it all up with a ribbon and you're ready to go!
Now about the part I cut out...you didn't expect me to throw that away, did you? Of course not! I used the front and back cover pieces to make the birthday girl a notebook (finished size 6 1/2" x 8 1/2", or 16.5 cm x 21.6 cm), using the same technique as the sewn journal, which is described here.
Here's what the book looks like on the inside. My friend loved both gifts, loved the box, and plans on re-using the cereal gift box to give to someone else. Now that's true recyclling!
