Favor Box Redux for the Season



A couple of years ago I designed some cute favor boxes for my sister's bridal shower, which I shared a tutorial for here on the blog. I thought it would be neat to do these in pink for Valentine's Day favors. I made a couple of prototypes and the girls went batty for them so I thought I'd share these with you guys since they're so easy to make.



I have a couple of templates you can use for this. Click HERE FOR THE PDF or HERE FOR THE JPG of the favor box. Both templates are the same, just different formats. Print them out at 100% on a letter-size sheet. Use card stock or other thick paper.



Now... as you can see, the templates come without personalization (no names -- unless your kids have the same names as mine, in which case email me and I can send you mine!) You can either have you child sign their name on the flat sheets with a permanent marker or if you're feeling extra crafty, open up the JPG in your preferred image editing software and type in your child's name. I used the font Century Gothic in white with a soft drop shadow, but any sans-serif font will do.



Assembly is easy as pie:

• Cut them out on the solid line.
• Fold them on the dashed lines.
• Glue them where it says to.
• Punch holes on the circles at the top and thread some pretty ribbon through.

If you are the visual type, click here for a step-by-step photo guide of the ones I made for the bridal shower.

There were only a few of things I did differently:

• I used a hot glue gun to glue the flaps, but if you are having your children help you with assembly, I strongly suggest using my original idea of double-stick tape or a glue stick.
• I cut my ribbons at 12" long and omitted the beads.
• I filled my favor boxes with shredded papers and a small assortment V-Day chocolates, which already come in pretty colors & shapes, instead of my custom candy wraps.

Finally, if you look over there >>> on my sidebar, I have a BLANK template, in case you want to use some sort of patterned paper or create your own design for the inside of the box. How fun would it be to print blank ones and have the kids decorate them?! :) There is also a teal-colored version on the side bar (the original one I used for the bridal shower) in case pink's not your favorite. ;)

Happy V-Day, all! :)

Favor Box Tutorial

As promised, here are the step-by-step instructions to creating this sweet favor box, perfect for a bridal shower, baby shower, birthday party or many other occasions. Over to the left sidebar you can download the template with Jester motif or a blank one that you can print onto your own patterned or colored paper. (Note: the pictures below show the boxes with a personalized message. Your template will come without it but you can easily add your own if you have any Image Editing software at hand). Let's get started.

You will need:

• 8.5" x 11" Card Stock
  
• Ruler
• Self-healing mat
  
• Scissors
• X-Acto Knife
• Craft Glue OR Double Stick tape
• Hole Punch
• Bone Folder (not pictured)
• 1/4" Thick Ribbon
• Plastic or Glass beads (optional)
  

Download your template, open with Acrobat Reader (or any other software that can view PDFs) and print onto heavy card stock (the boxes won't be sturdy enough on copier-weight paper)

Cut out the template on the solid lines. After cutting a dozen or so of these, I found it was easier to use my X-Acto knife on the straight edges and corners and use the scissors on the rounded parts but you guys do what feels more comfortable to you.


Use a bone folder to fold your flat boxes on the dashed lines. You get a very crisp edge with a bone folder. But if you do not have one, you can use the edge of a wooden ruler or even a wooden spatula for this purpose.


Apply craft glue (I like using E6000, but if you prefer you can use permanent double sided tape) to the 4 flaps marked as "GLUE FLAP" and build your boxes. Punch a small hole in the marked areas on the rounded tops.


If you want to cover some Hershey miniatures to put in the boxes, like I did, print a sleeve sized at 1.5" wide x 3" long and apply to the chocolates using a small piece of double stick tape. You can use regular copier-weight paper for these. And there is no need to remove the original candy wrapper... just apply the sleeve right on top of the wrapper.


Voila! Personalized sweets:


Line each box with a half sheet of tissue paper and fill with about 7 - 8 chocolates. Cut a piece of 1/4" wide ribbon at approximately 18" long and feed through each punched hole at the top. Tie into a pretty bow.


For an extra special touch, add colored beads and tie the ends of the ribbon into a knot to secure the bead in place.


ENJOY!

(and, please let me know if you have any problems downloading the PDF on the sidebar)

best surprise ever!!

I was just about to jump off the computer and make dinner tonight as I had heard Jon come through the door, when an email popped up from the beautiful, talented and always fabulous Daria of Boutique Cafe and it was titled, SURPRISE Patty!! XOXO. Well, how could I not open and email like that?! Especially when it comes with hugs AND kisses right on the subject line. To my utter surprise and amazement, Daria had featured my ModGreetings website on her weekly podcast today! WOOOHOOO! How sweet is that?! I love you, Daria!

Pop on over to Boutique Cafe when you get a chance and listen to the podcast and leave a comment in the show notes to be entered to win a Variety 10-Pack from my store.



On another note, thank you all for all the encouraging comments and weight loss suggestions. It's so funny to see how everyone's got a different method that works for them. Many of you suggested Atkins or South Beach, but I gotta tell you right now that it ain't gonna happen. Anyone or anything that makes me not eat bread for longer than a few hours is not a friend of Patty. I am Hispanic... bread is in my blood. I know it's not the best for me but I just cannot cut something like that out of my diet. I would be be a major "crabby patty." ;)

I am happy to report though that I've taken up walking on the treadmill and I don't totally hate it. I walked for 30 minutes last night while watching Project Runway on my DVR. I burned 162 calories and felt great afterwards. I plan to increase my time & speed on the treadmill every day until I can do 1 hr. without dying. I've also been forcing myself to drink more water. You may remember the i hate water post from a few weeks back. Well, lots of lemon & lime slices (and occasionally cucumbers too) are making water drinkable for me right now -- still not up to the 8-glasses-a-day level... that would be a Patty Record for sure, but I'm probably guzzling down about 3 or 4. Baby steps, right?

Also, I did not forget about the favor boxes template/tutorial. I am working on it. I took a ton of pictures of the step-by-step process so I need to cut them down to a manageable amount and edit them and put together the whole tutorial thingy. It'll be up in a couple of days. Thanks to all who commented on it. :)

Now, go, go, go listen to that podcast.

baby got back

My sister gets married in less than 4 weeks (August 23rd) and I am the maid of honor. I tried on the bridesmaid dress at David's Bridal and ordered it way back before I went to Quilt Market (sometime in May) and it fit perfectly (well, it was a little tight but I figured if I lost a couple of pounds before the wedding, it would look HOT!) The dress came in the day before we went to on our FL vay-cay. I just picked it up in a huge hurry, didn't try it on and just stuck it in the closet.

Well, you probably know where this is going... Two nights ago, when my mom & sister were here, I put on the dress... or should I say, tried to put on the dress... for my mom to see how cute (NOT!) I looked in it. I couldn't even zip it up!!! (sob). I looked at the tag to see if they had mistakenly given me the wrong size but nope, it was the size I ordered. So I pulled out the scale (I haven't stepped on this thing in weeks!) and I was a good 8-10 lbs. heavier than when I went to Market. (SOB!) What do I do??? I needed to lose 2 lbs. but instead I gained about 10! It is waaaay to late to get the thing exchanged (since they were special-order) and there is no way to alter it (I could take it in but there's no way to let it out!) WAAAAAAA!

On another note, I totally missed my 200th post. It was 2 posts ago, but I guess I was a bit pre-occupied. Oh well! Today is the first day of "back to normalcy" here in the MODKID household. The girls returned from FL last week and my mom stayed with us until yesterday, and in between then & now we've had a flurry of activities, including (but not limited to) a birthday party, a weekend trip to St. Louis, a bridal shower and a visit to the local water park. Oh, and of course, the modgreetings launch, which by the way, thanks so much for all the wonderful comments and your purchases. I have a couple of wholesale inquiries already, plus one more local store that wants to carry them, so that's great news! :)

My mom, my sister and my niece all left yesterday and now it's just the 4 of us... for the first time since, well, June! WOW! Sophie actually asked me last night "So, is it just gonna be us from now on?" heeeheee... KIDS! Gotta love them! :)

So, speaking of the bridal shower, I made these super cute personalized favor boxes for the attendees using one of my Andalucia designs, "Jester" in the Aqua colorway (which just happens to be her wedding color!)



I searched & searched the internet for a good favor box template (and I did download a couple) but they were all too small or just not shaped right, and I wanted to fill these to the brim with chocolates. So I made up my own template. It worked out perfectly. I even made a little sleeve for the Hershey mini's (hmmmm... in hindsight, I probably should have stayed off the Hershey minis and maybe I could still fit into my bridesmaid dress... sigh!)



So, anyway, I will be putting together a sweet little tutorial (with plenty of step-by-step pictures, of course) on how to make these. It will include a PDF download template for the box with or without the Jester pattern. Hope you guys are into that kind of stuff... we had the best time assembling these last week!

So, I will leave you now. If anyone has a great crash diet tip, please leave a comment. Hey, all you Cook It. Blog It! members... please send me links to any low-fat recipes you may have, or some sort of lose-12-pounds-in-4-weeks diet plan or something. I am allergic to exercise but I guess I can make an exception and maybe take some Claritin for this occasion. ;) I promised my sis I would run on the treadmill 1 hr. every night but I already broke my promise once. :(

HELP! I don't wanna be a naked bridesmaid!